


Deepest Interpersonal Affection (the Only Human Remix)

by Timjan



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Captivity, Crooked Remix 2018, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Pining, Remix, Set Fall 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-05 20:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16374320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timjan/pseuds/Timjan
Summary: Tommy gets a dog. Then everything goes wrong.





	Deepest Interpersonal Affection (the Only Human Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [persuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/persuna/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Deepest Interpersonal Affection](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12739161) by [persuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/persuna/pseuds/persuna). 



> Hello there, persuna!
> 
> I've had a blast (re)writing this story, and I hope you - and any and all other readers, for that matter - will enjoy the result! I actually got the idea for this fic already when I first read the instructions for the Crooked Remix Challenge and came across the example "take the story and add or subtract an element (e.g. magic)" on the list of ways that a work can be remixed. It got me thinking “Huh, removing the magical elements from a story could be interesting” and I immediately thought of "that story where Tommy turns into a dog". When I actually got assigned to write for you, I took it as the universe’s insistence that this story needed to exist, and now here we are. : )
> 
> Oh, and as always, keep this away from non-fandom eyes, please and thanks!

_Head swimming, Tommy watched his dog – his dog as of less than an hour! – run away at full speed, golden fur gleaming in the morning sunlight._

_‘Fuck, if I die now Lovett’s gonna think that I was still angry at him,’ was Tommy’s last coherent, if somewhat nonsensical, thought before the spongy darkness of unconsciousness overtook him._

 

It was with a sense of deep trepidation, if not to say dread, that Lovett went into work Thursday morning. It didn’t help that Favs treated him with kid gloves until he went into the studio to record the Thursday pod, and as Lovett’s trepidation had everything to do with Tommy, it also _absolutely_ did not help that he didn’t know when exactly Tommy was going to show up. Generally Tommy was very punctual, a regular Immanuel Kant for the people of Königsberg to set their watches after, but today he was taking time out to pick up his new dog from the shelter, and as far as Lovett knew that could take anything from half-an-hour to all morning and part afternoon. And Lovett wasn’t exactly looking forward to learning what shape Tommy’s anger and disappointment in him would take when face to face at work – this wasn’t likely to turn out to be the kind of surprise that Lovett enjoyed – but the state of waiting was  _torture_.

Lovett sat down at his computer and started to half-heartedly play around with his script for the next day’s  _Lovett or Leave It_ , turning his back to the door so as not to stare at it. Not that it made much difference; he was still just as much on high alert for any sign of anyone approaching the Crooked Media headquarters, metaphorically pricking his ears up like a dog. After three false alarms – Priyanka, Sarah and Jesse – Lovett buried his face in Pundit’s longsuffering fur.

“Hey angel, how do you feel about meeting your new best friend?” he mumbled.

Pundit’s only reply was to twist around and try to lick at his face.

“You’re gonna love him,” sighed Lovett.

Lovett had already met the best-friend-to-be in question, so he felt qualified to make that call. Tommy’s new dog was an utter cliché of a golden retriever, happy and high energy, somewhere between a year and two years old, according to the shelter people’s guesses.  The perfect dog for an already clearly smitten Tommy, easy to love. When Lovett had tagged along to the shelter the dog had tried to sit on his lap even though he was clearly too big for that, and Tommy had smiled and said “Good, he likes you,” in a tone that Lovett had done his best not to melt into. But it hurt to think about that, because that was before everything went to hell. So Lovett put on headphones to avoid further distractions (it was not like he was likely to miss it when Tommy actually showed up anyway), and thought of other shit – the one plus of living in Trump’s America was that there was always other shit to think about.

 

Tommy still hadn’t showed up by the time Favs came out of the studio again, with Leo dancing around his feet. He yawned and stretched so that his t-shirt rode up just enough to show some skin, and if Lovett had been in a better mood he would have commented on Favs’ ridiculous flaunting of his ridiculous body. Today he just let Pundit go so she could run over to greet her half-brother.

“So, have you heard from Tommy today?” asked Lovett, all false nonchalance that wasn’t fooling anybody.

Favs shot him a pitying look before fishing his phone out of his back pocket.

“Nah, seems not.” Favs faux-nonchalance wasn’t any more convincing, but at least it was way less pathetic than Lovett’s.

“No cute dog pictures?” Lovett went on, unable to stop himself even though he already knew the answer. “He hasn’t tweeted?”

“We both know that you have alerts on for Tommy’s tweets. And you’re not the only one Tommy’s… unhappy with, right now, you know.”

“Yeah, about that…” began Lovett, and he kept going even as Favs winced. “I still can’t  _believe_ you managed to stay mum about my and Tommy’s whole…” – he waved his hand – “thing, whatever, for years and  _years_  and then, woops, slipped up at the  _worst_ possible moment!”

Lovett didn’t _really_  want to pick a fight with the best friend that he wasn’t already currently fighting with, but apparently he was.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Lovett,” replied Favs, in that infuriatingly reasonable tone of his. “I’ve already said I’m sorry. But look, maybe something good can come out of this, once Tommy, er, calms down. At least you’ll  _have_  to cut the bullshit and talk about your” – he lifted his hands in air quotes – “‘thing, whatever’ now.”

“Yeah, great,” Lovett deadpanned. “You’re right. I should actually _thank_  you for spilling my most secret secrets and making Tommy blow up on me just when… just when…” Lovett swallowed and swiped his hand over his face, unsure how to finish that sentence. “Never mind, I’m going for a walk. Come on, Pundit!”

 

Tommy  _still_  hadn’t arrived at the Headquarters when Lovett got back from his impromptu walk, so Lovett just put the iced latte he’d picked up as some sort of peace gesture on Tommy’s desk, where it stood, looking forlorn. At least it couldn’t go cold. And at even least-er Favs was there to appreciate  _his_ peace offering and chat easily with Lovett while they both pretended that it wasn’t getting more and more strange that Tommy had neither showed up, nor contacted either of them in any way. Lovett left it to Favs to give excuses for Tommy to their staff. He put his headphones back on, trying to shut the world out for a moment, to disappear in the music he was blaring straight into his ears. Lovett sat like that, scrolling through Twitter and various news sites without really reading anything, until Favs waved a hand in front of his computer screen. Lovett lifted his headphones off one ear.

“What?”

“Uh, I’m gonna call him,” said Favs. “I’ve already texted him three times, but, you know…”

Lovett took his headphones off completely then.

“Yeah, yeah, call him. If he asks what the emergency is, it’s that he seems to have vanished into thin air.”

Favs must have heard some of Lovett’s need to be as in the loop as possible in his voice, because he wordlessly put his phone on speaker, placed it on the table between them. Six signals went through, and then: “You’ve reached Tommy Vietor. Leave a message if you need me to call you back.”

Favs took a deep breath and put on a cheery smile before speaking.

“Hiya, there, Tom! What’s up with your radio silence, we’re getting a little worried here at Crooked HQ. How are things with your new furry friend? We’re all dying to meet him! Text me back when you get this, okay? Bye-bye!”

Favs and Lovett didn’t talk for a while after that, because what was there to say? Lovett tried to work in silence, but he didn’t get much done. When Pundit whined at his feet he gave up on getting anything done; he picked her up and cuddled her, drawing comfort from her warm little body. Favs didn’t say anything. And Lovett didn’t say anything fifteen minutes later when Favs picked up his phone again, and then again, writing texts that got no replies.

When Favs’ phone finally beeped, both he and Lovett jumped.

“Oh. It’s Emily,” said Favs, looking at the screen.

It was the first time Lovett had heard him say those words with disappointment in his voice. A knife that he hadn’t noticed until then twisted in his chest.

“Something is wrong,” said Lovett, quietly so the staff wouldn’t overhear.

“We don’t know that,” returned Favs immediately, as if he’d been waiting for Lovett’s comment, as if he’d been thinking it himself and then soothed himself the way he was trying to soothe Lovett now. Or maybe Lovett was reading too much into things. He was feeling a little frayed at the ends.

“I’m not saying he’s been hit by a bus or had a psychotic break or whatever,” said Lovett, trying to keep his voice down (trying not to spiral), “but come on, Jon,  _something_ is clearly up! Tommy’s like, crazy responsible. Has anything like this  _ever_ happened with him before?”

“Not since Katie,” said Favs, low and almost monotone.

Lovett didn’t care much for the implications of that statement.

“We should call the shelter,” he said, so eager for a change of subject that he accidentally stumbled upon a good idea.

So Favs did, and they learned that Tommy had left three hours ago, in a bit of a hurry but happy and hale and with his new dog in tow.

“Something is wrong,” repeated Lovett, once Favs had hung up, then went on before Favs could object again. “You should go check if he’s gone home or something.”

Favs checked his watch, then nodded.

“Alright. Do you wanna come along?” he asked as he started to pack up his things, Leo dancing around his feet again.

Lovett considered for a moment, and rediscovered his trepidation at seeing Tommy again after their fight the day before.

“No. I mean, what if he actually shows up and none of us are here?”

Also,  _if_ Tommy had gone home instead of going to work, he was much more likely to be happy to see Favs than he was to welcome Lovett into his house.

“There are six members of staff currently in the building,” Favs pointed out.

“Exactly! We can’t  _both_ leave them all to their own devices, it’d be bedlam!”

Favs rolled his eyes at Lovett’s feeble attempt at a joke, and Lovett added, “Besides, with Tommy gone I guess I can look into cleaning up tomorrow’s Pod Save the World with Mukta.”

Surely a work-related favour was the way to get back into Tommy’s good graces. Unless Tommy  _had_ been hit by a bus and nothing mattered anymore.

 

Once Favs had left, Lovett took out his phone.

 _I know you’re not childish enough to be giving us the silent treatment,_ he typed out,  _but if you for some absurd reason have been holding back, waiting for me to contact you, here I am._ His thumb hovered over the ‘send’ button when the phone started to ring, and Lovett almost dropped it in surprise.

On any other day, Lovett would have been unlikely to answer a call from an unknown number, but right then he’d jump at any possible chance, however slim, at some news about Tommy’s whereabouts.

“This is Lovett.”

“Hello, am I speaking to ‘Jon L’?” replied a tinny woman’s voice.

So probably not a creepy stalker fan that had somehow got a hold of his cell number, then.

“Yes, I believe you are. Uh, who am  _I_ speaking to?”

“My name is Jimena Robles. We’ve found a dog?” The woman sounded very surprised at this turn of events.

Lovett wasn’t any less surprised.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“A dog. His necklace says he belongs to a T. Vietor,” she explained, pronouncing Tommy’s last name like ‘Vi-tór,’ “but when we tried to call him he didn’t pick up, so now we’re calling you.”

‘Fuck fuck fuck,’ chanted Lovett’s brain. What the hell had happened?

“I… okay, yes, I’m Tommy’s friend. I’ll come pick the dog up as soon as I can. Where do you live?”

The woman gave her address, and Lovett hung up, heart pounding. What was going on? Why had Tommy’s dog turned up far off from a) Tommy’s house, b) Crooked HQ, and c) the shelter he’d been picking him up from, before Tommy had even had a chance to introduce him to the Crooked Media family? And where the fuck was Tommy? Was he off searching for his lost dog, with his phone accidentally set to silent and no thought of informing his co-founders of where he was? No; Lovett knew his Tommy, and the idea that Tommy would be that thoughtless was preposterous.

Lovett had ignored the way the staff tittled and tattled about Tommy’s absence all day, but now it was time to level with them, if only to explain why he too was disappearing on them before the work day was over. He did so as quickly as possible, not caring if he came off as curt, and then, as soon as he was out the door with Pundit in tow, he called Favs.

“Hey, you just missed the latest, weird development,” he said, phone pressed to his ear by the shoulder as he fumbled with the door to his car.

“Did he show up?” asked Favs, eagerness ringing through the tiny phone speaker.

“No, sorry. Have you gotten to his house yet?”

“I’ll be there in like a minute. So, what happened, then?”

“Well, apparently some woman has found Tommy’s new dog. In her back yard. Without Tommy, but with a dog tag with my phone number on it. She hasn’t been able to reach Tommy either, by the way.” Lovett heard the frantic edge to his own voice, but there wasn’t much to do about that.

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.”

Lovett didn’t hang up as he got in the driver’s seat and started the car, but neither of them said anything for a while.

“Okay, I’m here now,” said Favs finally, just as Lovett was about to suggest they hang up so he could concentrate on his driving. “There’s no car in the driveway.” He sounded weary, like he’d lost hope in finding Tommy at home.

Lovett wasn’t particularly hopeful either, and also he really needed to concentrate on his driving.

“Call me back if you find him, obviously, but otherwise I’ll call you when I have his dog and we’ll decide where to go from there.”

 

The Robles turned out to be a lovely elderly couple, who invited Lovett into their home and offered him a wide variety of Mexican pastries, while asking a lot of questions that he couldn’t answer. Lovett did his best to hide the fact that he didn’t even know the name of the dog he was there to pick up, but if the Robles seemed a little weirded out by that, they were heartened by the way the puppy bounced over to greet him when he got out into the back yard. Lovett silently thanked G-d that he’d followed Tommy along to the shelter that one time, so that this wasn’t the first time they met. Lovett tried to get a furtive look at the dog’s name tag, but the puppy had decided that it was play time and wouldn’t stay still for long enough. Instead, Lovett tried to decipher what name the Robles were using, but a combination of fast talking, baby speak and slight accents meant that all he could make out was that it was something along the lines of ‘Losso’.

Then the Robles started asking Lovett about Tommy. Lovett kept hedging as best he could and finally brought up a reward, mainly as a way to change the subject.

“No, no, no, no,” objected Gerard Robles, “we’re just happy to help little Lucito find his way home!”

If Gerard and Jimena had had their way, Lovett would have stayed at their house for hours, playing with Tommy’s dog and eating pastries. To avoid this fate, Lovett used the fact that Pundit was waiting for them in the car as an excuse to bow out as soon as possible. He slunk out the door, only a little shamefacedly, with the lead for the golden retriever puppy in one hand and three orejas in the other.

As soon as they got out of sight from the Robles’ home, Lovett kneeled down on the sidewalk to acquaint himself more fully with the ‘newest member of the Crooked Media team’, as Tommy had called him. His new colleague immediately tried to lick his face. Lovett laughed, only a little hollowly, and scratched him behind the ears, then he got hold of his collar to check the ID tag. The collar had two dog tags attached to it – of course Tommy would need two for all the information he wanted to put down – both in the shape of a bone, the same kind that Leo and Pundit had. These ones were black, though, and the name on the front of the foremost one read ‘Lucio’.

“Lusio?” tried Lovett, imitating the way Jimena and Gerard had said it. Then, “Lukio?”

Neither pronunciation got any reaction from the golden retriever; he just kept smiling up at Lovett, tongue lolling out of his mouth.

Lovett put on an exaggerated Italian accent, exclaimed “ _Loo-chio!_ ”

No reaction to that either. Then again, one could hardly expect a puppy to have learned his new name in just a few hours. Or however long he had spent with Tommy before… before…

Lovett’s spiralling thoughts were mercifully cut off before they really got going by the dog – Lucio, however it was pronounced – giving a low “rourghff”.

“Yeah, I agree, your name is dumb,” said Lovett, with more vehemence than he had intended. He tempered it by scratching behind the dog’s ears again. “Your dad should have listened to me. Wouldn’t you have preferred being called Rover? Or Maven? Or Shadow?”

(“You can’t name a  _golden retriever_  ‘Shadow’, Lovett.” Tommy’s voice in Lovett’s memory was relaxed, fondly amused, a strong contrast to how it had sounded the last time they spoke.

“It’s  _ironic_ , Tommy, didn’t you live through the 90’s?” Lovett had responded, and Tommy had laughed way harder than that comment had deserved, and now Lovett’s heart hurt thinking about it.)

“I’m gonna call you ‘Lux’,” decided Lovett, back in the now.

The dog head-butted Lovett on the shoulder, which Lovett took as approval of his new nickname.

 

When Lovett and Lux got to the car, which Lovett had parked in the shadow of a large tree for Pundit’s sake, Lovett called Favs.

“He’s not here,” replied Favs, so quickly that Lovett almost dropped the phone in surprise. He didn’t sound at all calm anymore. “I’ve looked everywhere, and there’s no sign of him and no sign of anything being wrong either, but…”

“Okay,” said Lovett. What else was there to say? “Er, his dog’s fine, at least. He’s still a good boy, very sweet. I’m introducing him to Pundit right now.”

Favs just sighed.

In the silence, Lovett watched as Pundit gingerly stuck her nose out of the open car door to sniff at Lux, who was straining against the lead to get as close to her as possible, and then shied back at the slightest hint of a growl from Pundo.

“Should I come to you,” asked Lovett at last, “so we can regroup, decide what to do next?”

“Yeah, sure, come here. But Jon, we have to call the police.”

 

_Tommy woke up, nauseous and confused, on cold, hard concrete, blinking at what he finally realised were metal bars. From… somewhere… he could hear shouting, fighting, but he couldn’t make out any words. He could also hear a lot of barking, and there was a smell that was… Tommy swallowed against the overbearing stench of urine, wet fur and rotting meat that pushed at him like a physical presence._

_Fuck, this was really bad. Tommy tried to remember how he had ended up in this – cage, apparently,_ holy shit  _– but his head was full of cotton, his thoughts coming through with a disorienting second-and-a-half delay. Tommy rolled over on his back and closed his eyes to sort through the jumble of images, feelings, thoughts and impressions that made up his memories of the morning, tried to force them into a coherent narrative. Slowly a timeline of events took shape._

 _Tommy had been at Rosewood Animal Shelter to pick up his new dog – and God knew where poor Lucio was now! – and while Jenny-the-helpful-shelter-volunteer had showed him how to fill in the information for Lucio’s microchip, a man had come up to them, asking specifically for Tracey, the owner of the shelter. When Tracey came out the man had handed her a large, white envelope, and the two of them had gone off into a corner to have a hushed conversation that had raised Tommy’s hackles instantly._   _Tommy had looked at Jenny, trying to judge by her face if this was normal going at the shelter,_  a _nd she had given a little smile and a shrug, like ‘yeah this is weird but it’s none of my business’ and Tommy had decided right then to make it_ his _business._

_Tommy had disliked Tracey right from that first conversation when she’d called him up to correct the directions he’d just gotten from some other shelter worker, and managed to rub him the wrong way in three minutes flat. She’d been dripping with syrupy solicitousness, and yet Tommy had gotten the impression of someone trying to cover a hard edge, like a stiletto hiding in a wad of cotton candy. The only reason that Tommy had still gone along with the meet and greet-plan back then was that he’d already used it as his excuse to skip brunch with Lovett and the Favreaus, and Tommy would have done much worse than hanging out with a bunch of dogs to avoid that brunch. And today he’d jumped at the chance to use his suspicions against Tracey to further delay having to face Lovett again. In short, Tommy was a fucking coward and now he was paying for it._

_Heightened emotion apparently only served to make Tommy’s nausea worse, and it wasn’t helping him piece the chain of events that had led to him ending up in a cage either, so he took a few deep breaths and dove back down into his memories. He remembered how he had stalled while Tracey and the strange man talked, asking Jenny inane questions that he already knew the answers to. Then the man left and Tracey made to follow him, envelope in hand, and Tommy had crammed his adoption papers into his messenger bag, picked Lucio up, and rushed out the door with nothing but a quick “bye-bye” yelled over his shoulder. He’d found himself out on the street with his arms full of dog and his head full of theories about what might be going on, and when he saw Tracey get into the driver’s seat of a large white van he’d jumped into his own car._

_Tommy had tried to follow the white van as covertly as he could, keeping at least one other car between them at all points, but apparently he must have been super obvious. He had hardly even gotten out of his car at wherever it was that they had ended up before Tracey jumped out from behind a corner brandishing a syringe. Tommy knew how to defend himself, but Tracey had had the element of surprise on her side, and she had managed to stab the needle into the side of his neck before he even knew what was happening. And then whatever had been in that syringe hit him quick and hard, and he fell to his knees with only one thought in his head: he had to get Lucio away from this woman._

_Tommy had taken his new puppy with him when he left the car, in an attempt to come off as someone taking their dog on a morning walk before going off to work. And that had, after all, probably turned out the right choice; better for Lucio to be running free than to be trapped in Tommy’s car, at least. If he was running free, that was. Tommy obviously couldn’t know what had happened after he blacked out, but he_ had  _done everything he could to get the dog to run, even as it went against all his newly awakened dog dad instincts. Jenny at the shelter had told him that Lucio was afraid of loud male noises, so Tommy had yelled as loud as he could, flailing his arms even as they were going numb, trying to scare off this sweet, lovely puppy that should have been able to look to him for comfort. It hurt Tommy’s heart to even think of it now._

_Just as Tommy was imagining Lucio, scared and alone somewhere, he heard a small whine. For a moment he wondered if whatever had been in that syringe was making him hallucinate, but no. He slowly lifted his head, careful not to set off the thunderous headache he could feel looming behind his temples, and looked around. He was indeed in a cage, or maybe more of a cell, from the size of it – ceiling height and about 30 square feet large. Still, ‘cage’ seemed the right word to Tommy; it was clearly meant for animals rather than humans, with a couple of dog bowls thrown in a corner and nothing but the concrete floor for a human to sit or lie on, nowhere for a human to relieve themselves._

_There were cages like the one Tommy was stuck in all along the wall of the weird kennel-like room that he only vaguely could make out in the dim light, but the cage next to his was the only other one that was also occupied; on its floor lay an emaciated border collie with a dog cone around her neck and a nasty bite on her flank. At least the wound seemed clean._

_Very, very slowly Tommy got up into a sitting position, leaning back against the cage bars, and tilted his head towards his neighbour, who in turn lifted her own head to follow his movements. Getting a closer look at the dog, Tommy noticed she was shaking. When his eyes met hers she shied away._

_“Hello there, love,” he mumbled, fighting back angry tears._

_The collie whined again._

_“What did Tracey do to you, sweetheart?” continued Tommy, keeping his voice low and even. “What the hell is this place?”_

 

“So,” said Detective Ryan, “your friend tells me that you and the missing person – Mr Vietor – were in a fight yesterday?”

Surprised and uncomfortable, Lovett felt himself blush.

“Yes,” he said, trying not to squirm under the detective’s intense gaze.

“Lover’s quarrel?”

Lovett flinched.

“I – uh… not exactly,” he stammered, off balanced.

Lovett had arrived at the police station less than ten minutes ago, and walked straight into what was apparently an interrogation. He had been surprised when Favs had called to tell him to re-route, that the police had told them to come in to the station, because he thought he had read somewhere that the police wanted you to wait 48 hours before reporting someone missing, unless they were a child or had disappeared under suspicious circumstances. But as Favs had pointed out, Lux showing up in some strangers’ backyard probably constituted ‘suspicious circumstances’. And so Lovett found himself being ‘interviewed’ about his love life by a LAPD detective.

“‘Not exactly,’” repeated Detective Ryan, the words dripping with professional scepticism.

Lovett swallowed.

“Look, how much do you need to know? This is kinda personal.” His defensiveness probably wasn’t doing Lovett any favours, but apparently this was just another situation in which he was unable to tone himself down even though doing so would be in his own best interest.

Detective Ryan snorted.

“If something you consider ‘personal’ could have any bearing on our ability to find Mr Vietor, wouldn’t you want us to know it?” he condescended.

Lovett bit back his defensiveness.

“Of course, yeah,” he forced out, sounding insincere to his own ears. “What do you need to know?”

That earned Lovett a hum and a tight little smile that didn’t seem any more sincere than Lovett’s tone of voice had.

“What was the fight about?” asked the detective, then.

Lovett took a deep breath in insufficient preparation for slicing himself open.

“Well... okay, this is probably gonna sound very ‘high school’,” he said, “but just roll with it. So. Some years ago, Tommy and I were in a, er, sexual-but-not-romantic relationship.”

“How many years ago?”

“Six.”

Detective Ryan scribbled something down on his notepad, said, “Go on.”

“Then, last Friday, Tommy tried to kiss me.” Lovett’s voice had fallen into some kind of weird monotone, but it wavered a little at the word ‘kiss’.

“And that made you angry?”

“No, I…” Fuck, this was why Lovett never went to therapists. “I guess I was more scared, or whatever. Anyway. We avoided each other for a day after that, and then everything was fine.”

Well, things had been  _fucking awkward_  but they had pushed through it until they were fine.

“So why did you fight?” asked Detective Ryan, exasperation clearly lurking at the back of his throat, ready to leap out.

“Well, Tuesday night Tommy tried to kiss me again.”

“And  _then_  you got angry?”

Lovett put his face in his hand.

“No – then I let him.”

“Okay?”

Lovett sighed again, rubbed at his eyes. He didn’t know how to explain Tuesday night to this unpleasant – and almost certainly straight – cop. Tommy had invited Lovett (and Pundit) over, seemingly on a whim, to “help fill out dog adoption paperwork and drink wine” and Lovett, eager for things to go back to normal between them, had said yes. And then they had filled out paperwork and drunk wine until the words on the forms started blurring together and Tommy suggested they watched a movie as a reward for all their hard work. It had already been late, then, and Lovett had known he shouldn’t, but he’d been pleasantly buzzed and Tommy had been glowing golden in the dim light of the street lamps shining in through the window. The two of them had ended up moving closer and closer together on the couch like two magnets drawn together in caramel syrup, until Tommy, hesitant, pressed a kiss to Lovett’s temple and Lovett gave in and clambered on top of Tommy, movie forgotten, and kissed indulgently him until they fell asleep. (“Let’s just kiss, like that night in DC, remember?” Tommy had whispered into Lovett’s hair, and Lovett had replied into Tommy’s neck, lips brushing skin, “Yeah. Yeah, I remember.” Half-asleep mumblings that had felt like admissions of something big, exchanges of something precious.)

“We didn’t fight until the day after,” said Lovett. “Yesterday, that is. When Tommy, er, found out about something that made him angry.”

“And what was that?”

Lovett suddenly remembered that the detective had given him a glass of water when they first sat down, and took a drink from it to collect himself/stall for time. He hadn’t really thought about yesterday’s fight since it happened, had just remembered it sideways, out of the corner of his brain. Thinking about it straight on wasn’t very appealing, but needs must.

“Favs – Jon Favreau, who you spoke to before, he… well, he accidentally told Tommy that I had told him – Favs, that is – that we – me and Tommy – used to fuck. Wow, did you follow that? I told you this was gonna get very ‘high school’.”

“You did,” replied Detective Ryan, drily. “Do I have this right: Mr Vietor got angry with you for having divulged to your mutual friend – and, if I understand things correctly, mutual business associate – that you and Mr Vietor used to have an affair?”

It sounded strange, put like that; clinical and sordid at the same time.

“Uh, yeah. I guess.”

Lovett and Tommy had woken up together on Tommy’s sofa the next day, stiff and disoriented. They had gotten up and gotten ready – Lovett borrowing clothes from Tommy’s drawers, sharing a healthy breakfast in Tommy’s kitchen, taking Pundit on a quick morning walk – mostly in silence. Tommy had driven them to work, and they had spent the day circling each other, wary but hopeful, careful and overly polite, whatever was between them vibrating with promise in all its unsaidness. Favs and Sarah had clearly noticed that something was up, and Lovett had smiled to himself about having a joyous secret to light up his chest. He had gone home happy, sure that he and Tommy would end up seeing each other later that night, one way or another. Then Tommy had called out of nowhere – scared Lovett half to death it had, too; Tommy  _never_ called except in an emergency – and he’d picked up to Tommy bellowing “YOU TOLD JON!?”. In a few short moments everything had gone from jubilant to pitch-black, and Lovett had gotten out his emergency marijuana and gone to bed crying.

“You guess.” Detective Ryan’s voice has only gotten drier, like some sort of fancy wine aging in a barrel (if that was how wine worked – Lovett knew very little about the subject). “So, in your opinion, was your fight of a degree of seriousness that might induce Mr Vietor to do something reckless?”

“What? No! Tommy is never… never reckless,” exclaimed Lovett. Then the implication of what Detective Ryan had said really caught up with him, and he gasped. “You don’t – no! Tommy  _wouldn’t_. Absolutely not!” He felt like he couldn’t express the magnitude of how _Not Reckless_ Tommy was.

Something seemed to incrementally soften in Detective Ryan, then, and his tone was gentler when he went on with the questioning, making Lovett recount the day’s events. When they were done he even added a little “Take care” before he let Lovett go.

 

That night, Lovett lay in bed with Pundit squeezed as tightly as she would let him and Lux curled up on the other side of the bed, snoring softly. The police had told him and Favs to stay away from Tommy’s house until they’ve been there to look for evidence, or Lovett would have gone there, slept in Tommy’s bed and communed with his presence. (Christ, in this state he’d probably have smelled Tommy’s towels or something equally embarrassing, too.) As it was, Lovett couldn’t sleep, and it wasn’t because of the golden retriever’s noisy nose. Thoughts of Tommy tumbled through his mind, memories mixed with horrible fantasies of what might have happened to him. Heart attacks, robberies gone wrong, car accidents, strokes and psychotic breaks shared space with snippets of conversations from the last week, with the ghost sensation of Tommy’s lips on his, Tommy’s hands in his hair, Tommy’s nails on his skin. Lovett was half aroused, but his rib cage was filled with static noise and gravel.

When Lovett closed his eyes for the fifteenth time, determined to actually get to sleep this time, he drifted for a moment, and then… Tommy was standing in front of him, just like he had done for real last Friday night, a little closer than normal, looking down at Lovett with his brows furrowed after Lovett had accidentally slipped into making a joke that had definitely gone past the edge of flirty. Now, in Lovett’s head, Tommy once again mumbled “If you’re gonna joke about it all the time, we might as well…” and leaned forward. Lovett remembered how he’d closed his eyes and tilted his head back, how he’d already felt Tommy’s soft exhale against his half-open lips before he had got himself together and – through a frankly monstrous effort – gripped Tommy’s arms (lovely, muscular arms that felt incredible under his hands) to push him away, had said “No, we shouldn’t, Tommy, sorry…”. In Lovett’s mind’s eye, Tommy again looked lost in that way that had punched all the air out of Lovett’s lungs – he was used to seeing Tommy’s face go red, not white – as he scrambled for something to say, forcing out “We’re both single, we know what each other like, I know you don’t wa-... well, what’s the harm?” in a surprisingly persuasive tone. Lovett had freaked out, of course – “Let’s have this talk sober” – and ran off, and as soon he’d been alone he’d decided that they didn’t really need to ever have that conversation at all.

Lovett opened his eyes again. He sighed as Pundit squirmed away, and rolled over on his back. He fumbled for his phone on the nightstand, lit it up to learn that the time was 02:36 in the morning.  _Fuck._ It wasn’t like Lovett had never laid awake thinking about Tommy before – his brain had some well-traversed neural pathways to do with how he had known right from the fumbling start that his thing with Tommy would be a bad idea. (In fact, he’d taken one look at Tommy’s boyishly handsome face on his very first day at the White House and known he was a bad idea. Or known that he wanted to kiss him silly and squish his cheeks, same difference.) It was infinitely worse now, though; for all Lovett’s certainty back at the police station it was much harder to be so sure, alone in the dark, that Tommy wouldn’t to anything reckless, anything rash and stupid, that he wouldn’t…

 _But he wouldn’t do it right after adopting a dog, without even bringing him home,_  Lovett told himself, and the truth of it was a small warmth in his chest, until he realised that that just left a thousand  _other_ grisly possibilities of what might have happened to Tommy. He made to roll over to his other side to see if Lux might be more amenable to cuddling – he was basically Tommy in dog form, after all, so he should by rights be able to quell some of the ache in Lovett’s heart – but halfway into the movement, Lovett noticed that he still had his phone in his hand. Only dimly aware of what he was doing, Lovett tapped in Tommy’s number from memory and brought the phone to his ear.

 

 _Tommy hadn’t been sleeping, but the sound of a phone ringing –_ his _phone ringing – still made him jerk up from where he’d been lying on the floor, shivering and breathing in tune with an imagined Headspace meditation, trying to stave off a panic attack._

_‘Lovett,’ he thought, instantly one hundred percent sure. It had to be Lovett, calling in the middle of the night (they’d taken Tommy’s watch from him, but he thought it must be around two or three in the morning), making a last-ditch attempt at reaching Tommy, hoping against hope and against experience that this time, Tommy might pick up. It had to be Lovett, scared and abandoned, worrying and wondering if Tommy had left willingly, if this had something to do with…_

_The phone kept ringing, vibrating across the desk where it had been put with the rest of Tommy’s possessions – wallet, keys, watch, sunglasses – and lighting up a foot or so of the little office weirdly sectioned off into a corner of the grim room that had become Tommy’s prison. It wasn’t the first time that Tommy’s phone had made itself known. He’d gotten calls and texts throughout the day, painfully frustrating every time, but this time was_ hell _._

_Tommy wanted to scream. He wanted to get up and throw himself at the cage door, to shake the bars until his fingers bled. He might have done it, too – at least the screaming – if it hadn’t been for the dog in the next cage over, the wounded border collie who Tommy had taken to calling Lady. She, poor thing, was shaking again, her ears quirked up towards the noise, he nose quivering. Tommy wondered if she’d been woken up by the call, and wished he could explain to her that she didn’t need to be scared of it, that not everything in the world was out to hurt her, even if her experiences of life might have given her little reason to believe that._

_“Hey, girl, shh, shh,” he mumbled, trying to project a calm that he most definitely didn’t feel, hoping she wasn’t picking up on his anxiety._

_Tommy kept speaking softly, not very aware of what he was saying, until the phone finally went silent, and  the only sounds left in the dark room were Tommy quietly sobbing “Lovett, Lovett”, in a harmony with Lady’s slowly waning whines._

_After a minute or so, Tommy got up to pee. Some time after he first had woken up – maybe about half an hour, but time had been weird for a while there – a big guy who looked a lot like Tracey had showed up with some blankets, a bucket – “pee in this” – two bottles of water and two greasy 7-Eleven sandwiches (that had turned Tommy’s stomach at first, but that he’d eaten later when he got too hungry). Tommy had still been too weak to even get up off the floor when the door to his cage was opened. The man had laughed at his struggling, but then he had – absurdly – apologised for not finding a mattress and promised to bring one as soon as possible._

_Tommy really wished he’d had that mattress now, as he got back on the blanket that he’d spread out on the floor as some sort of inadequate sleeping mat. He put his head down on the scrunched up blanket he’d been using as a pillow, draped the remaining blanket over himself, and went back to not sleeping._

Lovett woke early the next morning, and the first thing he did was go over to Favs’ and Emily’s house.

“I just can’t be alone,” he said by way of greeting, voice cracking.

“Oh, Lovett,” said Emily, who’d been the one answer the door. She looked like shit, eyes bloodshot like she’d been crying and then crying again. Lovett knew he didn’t look much better.

Emily pulled Lovett into the house and insistently wrapped her slender arms around him. He didn’t resist, just closed his eyes and let her rock them both back and forth for a long time as he gripped the back of her sweater tight and sniffled. When they disentangled themselves from each other, Lovett noticed that Favs was on the floor behind them, hugging Lux – the only dog around after Pundit had rushed into the house to look for Leo.

“Good morning, Lo,” he said quietly, and Lovett scrubbed at his eyes, instantly on the verge of tears again.

The three of them got breakfast ready together, Lovett almost as at home in this house as in his own. They didn’t talk much; they were tired, and it was impossible to talk about non-serious things with Tommy’s disappearance looming over them. As for more serious subjects, every possible one seemed scary and complicated. Lovett didn’t know if he and Favs were going to go into the office later, for example, but he didn’t feel like bringing it up. He knew that Favs had spent some time the day before not only contacting Tommy’s mother, sister, and step mother, but also calling at least Dan, Tanya and Sarah to get them up to speed with what had happened. Maybe he’d informed the other staff and the interns too? Lovett didn’t even really care.

Lovett put out breakfast for the three dogs and whistled for Pundit and Leo. Immediately he could hear the clattering of claws as the two doodles started racing each other to the kitchen. They arrived at full speed, sliding a little on the hardwood floor.

Then Leo noticed Lux, and came to an abrupt halt, as Pundit continued past him, straight for the food. While she dug in, Leo stood his ground, cowering a little and growling.

“Nuh-uh,” announced Favs, and dove down to pick up his dog just as Leo gave a single, sharp bark.

Lux whined, and Pundit came over to check on him. She didn’t seem to think that his fear warranted her assistance, though, because she quickly went back to her breakfast again. Emily took it on herself to calm Lux down instead.

With the dog situation under control, the three humans sat down to eat as well, still mostly in silence. Favs had Leo in his lap, still in time out after his reaction to Lux, and was trying to eat his yoghurt without spilling on the dog’s furry little head. Any other day Lovett would have laughed – sniggered at the very least – but today he only really had the energy for a small smile.

Lovett was already halfway into his third toast when Emily looked at him over the edge of her coffee cup, hesitated for a moment, and then said, obviously trying to sound normal, “By the way, Lovett, uh… are you gonna do Lovett or Leave it tonight?”

Lovett hadn’t even thought of that.

“Oh, fuck. I don’t know.”

They were all still and silent for a precarious moment, balancing on the edge of having to talk about difficult things. Then Favs took a deep breath.

“We need to discuss how we’re gonna handle this whole… situation in general,” he said, gesturing with his spoon. “Are we gonna inform our listeners about what’s going on? Should we keep planning the Monday pod? How about Tommy’s interview with the general, should we cancel that?”

“…are we gonna put up today’s Pod Save the World?” supplied Lovett.

Favs groaned.

“Dammit, I don’t know. It seems weird to do it, right? But if we don’t, we definitely have to tell the listeners. Fuck, this sucks.”

“Yeah,” replied Lovett, too wrung out for sarcasm. “Yeah, it really does.”

 

Favs and Lovett did end up going in to Crooked HQ, after a slight detour to Tommy’s house just to make sure that he hadn’t showed up in the middle of the night and then inexplicably not tried to contact either of them. They didn’t talk as Favs drove them there, because talking would mean acknowledging that they were on a fool’s errand. And indeed; when they arrived the driveway was still empty, and on the police’s orders they didn’t go into the house, they just knocked on the door and waited for a performative minute before getting back in the car again.

Once they actually got to the headquarters, they immediately called an informal meeting to make sure that all the staff and the interns were informed about the fact that Tommy was missing, that his new dog had turned up alone in someone’s backyard, and that the police were on the case and hopefully making inquiries as they spoke. Then they called a more formal and selective senior staff meeting to take place in another hour, once people had had time to digest this information, where Dan would join them on a conference call and they would discuss the official plan of action for Crooked Media going forward.

While he waited for the second meeting to start, Lovett tried to conjure up at least a modicum of interest in the overnight news, but with Tommy’s chair conspicuously and continuously empty it was impossible to care even about the most outrageous Trump tweet. Lovett wasn’t alone in his inability to get things done either. A sombre silence had fallen over the premises, with all the Crooked people off in different corners, grappling with the reality of what was going on in hushed voices. The only glimmer of happiness in all the gloom came from people getting to introduce themselves to Lux, who quickly won over hearts and minds with his domestic policies of wagging his tail, tilting his head and begging people for belly rubs. He also managed to goad Pundit into playing with him, and after a while Leo reverted back to his regular friendly and easy going self and joined in the fun. Lovett gave up on getting anything done and lay on the floor with the dogs until the second meeting started.

Favs, as was his wont, took the lead.

“Okay,” he said, “there are a few things we need to decide. First: how open are we going to be with the public about what’s going on? Second, and relatedly:  _if_  we tell people that Tommy has gone missing, are we gonna include some kind of public appeal for information? Third: what are we going to do about the different pods? We have today’s Pod Save the World, tonight’s recording of Lovett or Leave It” – all heads swivelled around to look at Lovett, who shrugged – “and the Monday pod to consider.”

“Another thing to consider:” interjected Lovett, “how annoyed will Tommy be with us for our decisions if it turn out he’s just fallen and hit his head and he shows up this afternoon?” (An image on Lux accidentally tangling his lead around Tommy’s legs, making him fall and drop his phone down some kind of precipice flashed through Lovett’s mind. It was disturbing how much of a soothing fantasy he found it.)

The discussion that followed was subdued. No one knew what the best course of action was, and no one felt compelled to argue about it either. In the end Dan, a calm and sensible presence even over the phone, suggested that they consult the cops about what _they_ thought the best course of action would be. Everyone agreed, so after the meeting Favs hung back to call up the police station. When he showed up in the conference room doorway, Lovett swooped down on him like a hawk and dragged him back in, shutting the door behind them.

“What did they say?” he asked.

“They think it’s better if we wait a bit. I said we’re gonna put out some sort of announcement on Monday, if we haven’t heard anything by then. The detective didn’t sound stoked about it, but whatever. So we need to keep up appearances ‘til then.”

“Okay,” replied Lovett, nodding frantically. “We’ll put up the Pod Save the World ep, then. I, uh, I don’t think I can do Lovett or Leave It tonight, but I’ll give some sham excuse. ‘Personal reasons’? It’s not  _not_  true.” He could hear that he was talking too fast, but slowing down was impossible.

“Lovett…” began Favs, voice soft.

“No, wait. There’s something I have to ask you and you can’t ‘Lovett…’ me because then I won’t be able to get through it.”

Favs looked concerned, head tilted gently to one side, gap teeth biting into his lower lip, but he stayed silent. Lovett cleared his throat.

“Er, did… did Detective Ryan insinuate to you that Tommy might have –” Lovett’s throat closed up, but if he couldn’t even say it… “That Tommy might have killed himself?” he forced out.

The air went out of Favs in a soft ‘oof’.

“Lovett…” he said again.

Lovett shook his head, tears burning at the corners of his eyes. He closed them, swaying back against the door to the conference room.

“Just answer the question, Jon.”

Lovett could hear Favs breathe another little ‘oof’.

“Yeah,” he said at last. “Yeah, he did. More than insinuated – the bastard straight up told me that most people who go missing turn out to have killed themselves.”

Lovett sagged back against the door like he’d been physically struck.

“But Jon,” went on Favs, “he didn’t. Tommy didn’t. He wouldn’t – you know Tommy; if he were to kill himself, he would be…” Favs’ voice cracked. “He’d be, fucking,  _neat_ about it. Jon, please look at me. There would be a note, he would be easy to… easy to find. He would, at the absolute very least, bring his new dog home first!”

Lovett opened his eyes. He could protest – mental illness isn’t rational, everybody has a breaking point, Tommy  _had_ been fighting with Lovett, and the world was a dumpster fire; maybe things had gotten too much, and nobody had noticed – but it felt good to listen to Favs, to let his words lull the creeping guilt in Lovett’s chest.

“Yeah,” he said, and let Favs pull him into a hug.

 

_Tommy awoke from the sound of someone opening the door to the weird pseudo kennel that he was stuck in. He had fallen asleep at last, several hours after his phone rang in the middle of the night. He’d been too exhausted not to. He was still exhausted now, curled in a ball on his insufficient blanket, as he warily watched the man from yesterday enter again, still without a mattress but with what seemed to be breakfast for Tommy and Lady._

_Before approaching their cages, though, the man put his bag down and went over to a wall where a gardening hose hung on a holder. He started to unroll the hose, walking over to Lady’s cage. Lady pushed herself against the inner wall as the man hosed her cage down, rinsing her waste into a drain in the middle of the room. She stayed there while the man picked up one of her dog bowls through the bars with a grabber tool and filled the bowl with water from the hose, but she gave some hesitant thumps of her tail as he went back for his bag and poured some dog food into the other bowl. The man pushed the bowls further into the cage again, and Lady took some delicate steps forward to get her mouth on her breakfast._

_Then, the man went over to Tommy’s cage, carrying two new 7-Eleven sandwiches and looking at his feet. Tommy had watched all this in silence, but now he wondered if he should say something. He cleared his throat, and the man involuntarily looked up. Their eyes met. The man flinched._

_“Good morning,” he said, the words coming automatically, as if they’d been startled out of him._

_Tommy snorted._

_“Yeah, sure. Good morning.”_

_The man looked away even as he reached into Tommy’s cage to give him his food. Interesting, that he seemed so unable to face what he was doing to Tommy. Now that Tommy thought about it, he had seemed pretty uncomfortable yesterday too. Maybe he could use this discomfort for his own benefit somehow? Tommy knew from talking to people who’d been held hostage that the most important trick to staying alive was to befriend one’s kidnappers, get them to see you as a human being._

_“Still no mattress?” asked Tommy lightly, sticking to a known subject._

_“I’m working on it,” muttered the man._

_“Thank you for the food,” said Tommy then, keeping his voice even and calm like he would have to a hostile reporter trying to get him to crack back in his NSC days._

_The man grunted. He shifted his weight as if he was about to leave, but then he turned back to the cage, looked Tommy in the eyes again._

_“Your name is Tommy, right?” he asked. “That’s what Tracey calls you.”_

_“It is. Tommy Vietor. What’s yours?”_

_The man hesitated for a moment, but apparently he’d decided to go all in on this profoundly weird conversation, because then he said, “I’m Terence.”_

_“Nice to meet you, Terence,” said Tommy._

_Now it was Terence’s turn to snort._

_“Yeah, sure,” he said, echoing Tommy’s reply before. “Do you need me to rinse out your bucket?”_

 

Lovett’s weekend passed in a daze of fast food, booze, dog walks, and a feeling of utter uselessness. On Friday he had suggested to Favs that they should call up hospitals to see if Tommy had been committed to any of them, and Favs had told him that the police had already sent out a description of Tommy to all hospitals in the LA area. Instead, Lovett and Favs had ended up calling and texting any and every of Tommy’s friends that they had the numbers to, for the dual purpose of giving them a heads up about what was going on so they wouldn’t find out that Tommy was missing from the Monday pod,  _and_ to see if anyone could shine any light whatsoever on what might be going on. They’d learned nothing, but at least it had felt like they were _doing_ something.

By Saturday, Lovett was at a loss for what to do. He tapped out a few drafts for what to say in their Monday message, but there were only so many ways to say “Tommy has gone missing, please contact us if you have any tips”, and all of them were much the same. Just like when he’d been writing statements for what the president would say after the strike of some tragedy or other, there was no perfect phrasing that would make things right again. No combination of words that would fix what was irreparable. So Lovett went on to calling up Rosewood Animal Shelter again with the intention of asking Jenny the shelter staffer to  _really_ try to remember any important details from Tommy’s visit that she might have missed. Instead of Jenny, though, Lovett got a very snappish woman who snappishly snapped that Jenny already had told the police everything she knew, and then hung up on him. Lovett imagined that that must have been Tracey the shelter owner, purely because he immediately disliked her intensely and that was exactly how Tommy had described  _his_  reaction to Tracey.

That was the point at which Lovett gave up and accepted that there was nothing he could do to bring the case forward as long as he was under their weekend gag rule. Wherever Tommy was, whatever was happening to him, it was out of Lovett’s hands, ergo Lovett’s hands were free to grab a bottle of Captain Morgan and get his mouth to work on emptying it. It was fine. It was fine, because he had let Favs and Emily take Lux for the weekend, so he didn’t even have a needy pup to take care of (or project his affection on). Pundit could handle his drunken ass, demanding food and walks and pets when needed.

 

_Tommy was slowly going insane. And no wonder; being locked up in a cage for days would do that to a person. Tommy would lie on the mattress that Terence had actually managed to finally get him, staring up at the concrete ceiling, and his mind would start spinning, conjuring up half-baked plans to escape (none of them remotely feasible) and memories, so many memories, things he hadn’t even known he remembered. Childhood things of his dad, of his mom, his sister…  A day on the water when he’d just gotten big enough to get a new life vest, bright and blue; Christmas at his grandparents’ house, smelling of dog and pine needles and ginger bread; his parents handing him back and forth between them when he’d gotten tired on a hike._

_There were other things too, memories from Boston, Chicago, Iowa, DC, San Francisco, LA all mixed together in a crazy potpourri. That night when he realised that Favs was gonna be a friend for life, still at work way too late at the Senator’s office, so tired they were giddy with it and laughing at anything and everything, confessing hopes and dreams and plans for the future. The first meeting with the Cash App people, when Lovett had made everyone laugh until they cried. That day in Paris when he’d proposed to Katie, his heart so full, the whole world beautiful._

_Somewhere around there, memory would give way to fantasy, and Tommy would imagine buying a ring again, this time at the men’s department. He’d imagine going down on one knee and getting a sarcastic but delighted rant in reply, a yes hidden somewhere in a dependent clause of another dependent clause. He’d imagine actually getting to his wedding day, this time, standing face to face with Lovett and basking in that soft smile that he’d caught on Lovett’s lips once, in an unguarded moment in bed together in DC, and had longed to see again ever since. Tommy would force himself to stop there, because those fantasies were what might_ really  _drive him mad._

_Still, it was impossible not to miss people, when Tommy knew the odds were he’d probably never see the people he loved ever again. (On the other hand, if all that religion he’d been taught as a child was right after all, he might see his dad again sooner than he would have thought. That would at least be something.) One thing that Tommy was realising was how incredibly weird it felt to miss Favs, used as he was to them being joined at the hip. Even while Tommy lived in San Francisco – what a ridiculous attempt at self-restraint that had been! – he’d always been able to reach Favs whenever he wanted, to text him (or even call him) and instantly get a “Hey buddy” back. Tommy was more used to missing other people, like his mother or his sister or Ben. Or Lovett. Missing Lovett was the polar opposite to missing Favs – it felt disconcertingly familiar. Tommy was used to missing Lovett even when they were in the same fucking room._

_As the days passed, Tommy fell into a sort of routine of trying to stave the madness off. He worked out, doing sit-ups and push-ups and jogging in place in the middle of his cage, knees high, trying to burn off all his excess energy with nowhere else to go. Lady looked on from her cage, alarmed at first (as was her wont, poor thing) and then curious. Tommy kept up with his project of trying to befriend her, and on Saturday night she first came all the way up to the wall separating their cages to smell his fingers. By Monday she would lay down pressed against the bars and let Tommy pet her neck, scratch underneath the cone she still wore. He slept a lot. He could easily spend ten, eleven, twelve hours a day asleep, spread out through the day and the night, an amazing feat for someone who was used to rejoicing in getting six whole hours of sleep in one night. Tommy didn’t know why that was happening, but he wasn’t going to look a gift coping mechanism in the mouth._

_Tommy was also quickly figuring out that there was another reason why one should befriend ones kidnappers: humans need human interaction, and in this situation the only humans Tommy had to interact with were his kidnappers. Or, well, Tommy still wasn’t interacting with Tracey. That was both by choice and from lack of opportunity; Tracey hardly ever showed up in the weird cages-plus-office room anyway. On the rare occasion that she popped in for a second to get something from the desk or a shelf, Tommy would take a leaf out of Lady’s book and lay as low as possible._

_Tommy and Terence, on the other hand, were weirdly getting to know each other. It began with Tommy asking for things. After he got the mattress he’d been promised, he started asking for apples and vegetables to go with the greasy fast food that Terence kept bringing him. Then, a few days into his captivity and feeling gross with accumulated dirt and the sweat from his little work out sessions (fascinating how he could be in a constant state of fear for his life and still care about things like that!), he got Terence to buy him a multi-pack of clean, if a bit scratchy, underwear. By then they’d started talking for real whenever Terence came to clean out Lady’s cage or bring food or work in the little office for a while. (Tommy’s nose had sort of acclimatised to the horrific smell of the place, but he still didn’t understand how anyone could spend any amount of time here out of their own free will.)_

_Over the days of the weekend, Tommy learned more about his captors. Terence told him that he and Tracey were siblings, and that they’d been born and raised in LA under decidedly rough circumstances. Not that that excused the two of them running an illegal dog fighting ring, which Tommy, reading between Terence’s lines, figured was what was going on here. Which was why it came as such a shock when he noticed Terence sneaking Lady some dog treats, late one night before presumably going home to sleep. Even more absurdly, Terence seemed taken aback when Tommy voiced his surprise._

_“Hey, she’s a sweet girl,” he said, “and she’s been really good. Of course she deserves some goodies.”_

_Terence then explained to Tommy how ‘the people’ sometimes demanded ‘fresh meat’ for the fights, but that he and Tracey always tried to make sure the dogs didn’t die. Like this was all normal._

_“An’ then we take care of ‘em – Tracey’s a veterinarian – until they’re good to go and we adopt ‘em out. This pretty girl here will have a great life once she’s well again, people love collies.”_

_‘She’s been traumatised for life,’ Tommy didn’t reply, because antagonising Terence really wasn’t in his own best interest. Instead he forced out an unconvincing, “That’s nice, will you let me give her some of the treats next time?” and let the subject drop for the night._

_The subject didn’t stay dropped, though, and Tommy soon gathered that Terence was under the impression that the other dogs – the ones Tommy could hear barking throughout the day from some other building on the premises – actually_ enjoyed  _going at each other in the ring._

_“They’re fighters,” he’d say, “it’s in their blood, their dee-en-ay. An’ if it wasn’ illegal we could take better care of ‘em too.”_

_‘Keep telling yourself that, buddy,’ Tommy thought, but again he bit his tongue, and thanked God that he, and not Lovett, was the one imprisoned here. Lovett would never have been able to keep his mouth shut. Fuck, Tommy missed him._

_When they weren’t talking about Terence’s dirty business, Tommy told Terence about_ his _life, his work. Terence thought it was super cool that he’d worked for Obama and wanted to know all about it. He had a healthy dose of curiosity about how podcasting worked, too, and what it was that made Tommy do what he did, what it was that drove him. It all ended with Tommy half-seriously trying to talk him into voting in next years’ midterms. (‘You should take every opportunity you get to convince someone about the importance of our democracy,’ said Favs in Tommy’s head.)_

_By Sunday, Tommy felt like he’d built up enough of a rapport with Terence to ask him what their plan for him was. At first, Terence wouldn’t answer. Tommy thought he might have misjudged, but when he carefully pressed him, he at last mumbled that “Tracey wants to keep you here for two months or so, until the cops stop looking for you, and then she says we’ll… get rid of you…”_

_Two months in this place sounded like hell, but Tommy also didn’t want to die. He had never thought of himself as someone who shied away from the thought of death, thought he’d learned to face it when his dad passed away. Staring his own death in the face the way he was forced to do now was something else, though. It sure had a way of reworking one’s priorities, for example._

_Now, whenever Tommy thought about his interactions with Lovett during that last week before he got kidnapped, he would wince at himself and his inability to handle his emotions in any reasonable way. He should have just been brave and told Lovett how he felt, let the chips fall as they may. Instead he had tried to come at it obliquely, to sneak a kiss and suggest they become fuck buddies again, as if that had worked out well the last time. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And then when he’d actually gotten Lovett to kiss him somehow (not just once but again and again, so soft and achingly sweet) he_ still  _had been too fucking chicken-shit to say something. There’d definitely been something there between them, then, but Tommy hadn’t trusted it enough to jump. Idiot._

_And then the fight. Fuck, that had been the dumbest thing of all, so childish and unnecessary. Tommy honestly hadn’t even quite understood what it had been that made him so angry even back then, when the feeling had actually been raging through him. Now, with all traces of anger gone, Tommy’s phone call to Lovett was a nigh incomprehensible act of self-sabotage._

_It had begun once Lovett had left the Crooked HQ for the day on Wednesday, when Favs instantly turned to Tommy with his eyes narrowed._

_“So what the fuck was that, then?” he’d asked._

_Tommy had feigned ignorance, but it had been pretty clear that Favs had been referring to the weird dance of polite anticipation that Tommy and Lovett had gone through the whole day, quiet but obvious._

_“Did you two finally talk?” had come Favs’ next question._

_Tommy’s blood had run cold. “What do you mean?” he’d asked._

_Favs had clammed up then, but Tommy had given him a look that he knew would get him to break._

_“Okay, yes, look, Jon told me you two used to…”Favs had admitted at last, waving his hand vaguely, but still getting what he meant across loud and clear._

_Tommy had been stunned silent. So Lovett had told Favs about their… whatever. Relationship. Why?_ When?

_Tommy hadn’t ever said a word about what had been going on in DC, not while it had been happening, and not later either. It wasn’t like he and Lovett had ever agreed to keep what they did secret, but still. Talking about it would have been like bursting their bubble of unreal intimacy, of hazy kisses on their DC couch and heady, sweaty comings together in the privacy of their respective rooms. It would have been like dragging something precious into the harsh light of reality and watching it shrivel into nothing._

_But Lovett… Lovett_ had _burst that bubble, had told_ Favs _, of all people._   _An image of Lovett rushing into Favs' office the morning after they first had sex had run through Tommy’s head as he’d gaped at Favs._

 _“I know he's your best friend but I just_ have  _to rant,” announced his anno 2011 mind-Lovett, who then went on to decompress to Favs_ about _Tommy the same way he’d done_ to  _Tommy a thousand times, after particularly shitty dates with asshole republican aides and phony wannabe reporters._

_That had been when the anger had come, washing over Tommy like a cleansing fire, burning away any embarrassment or confusion, replacing it with holy rage._

_“I have to go,” he’d said, not even looking at Favs._

_Then he’d been off, laptop thrown into his bag, rushing down the stairs to his car, fumbling for his phone. He hadn’t been thinking, hadn’t been considering what this meant for him and Lovett now, had all but forgotten the tentative hope that he’d allowed himself to feel earlier that day. He’d just called Lovett up to yell at him, to accuse him of having betrayed his trust, of having outed him (which, in hindsight, probably wasn’t even what Tommy had really been so angry about). Tommy had screamed at Lovett not to bother coming along to pick up his new dog the next day. And now, here Tommy was._

_Tommy shook his head and got up, planning to jog in place until he collapsed. Hopefully he’d be able to sleep for a whole fucking day after that._

 

On Monday, Lovett finally got to feel a little less useless as he and Favs made their special recording where they told their listeners that Tommy was missing, that the police were involved, and that he’d last been seen at Rosewood Animal Shelter at half past eleven on Thursday morning. They talked a little about Lux, explaining that Tommy might have been spotted with or without a golden retriever, but that the dog was safe and sound with them now. They even described Tommy’s car and gave its number plates. They ended the message with a call to direct any and all tips to a special “Help Us Find Tommy” e-mail address that they’d set up on the Crooked Media server. Dan, feeling even more useless up in San Francisco, jumped in and covered for Lovett for the actual pod, which was just a quick update on the latest hellscape news, with hardly any analysis or elaboration. Favs did the ads by himself, dry and professional. Then they posted the pod and the message together, and waited.

They didn’t have to wait long. It took a little while before they got their first actual tip – someone had seen a tall, blond man stepping into a taxi in Santa Monica – but almost the second that they put the pod up concerned tweets and DMs started flooding in. Lovett stayed away from them. They read too much like condolences.

As Favs, Tanya, Sarah and whoever else who happened to be available at the moment answered e-mails and tweets, calling up anyone who had what seemed like even the tiniest bit of a promising lead, Lovett retreated to sit with Leo, Lux and Pundit instead. The dogs were clearly affected by the general downcast mood at the headquarters, but at least they didn’t know why everyone was so sad. At least they didn’t think Tommy was dead.

When Lovett got a call from an old reporter contact, asking to do a feature about Tommy’s disappearance, Lovett almost yelled at her through the speakers. Instead he wordlessly handed his phone to Tanya and took Pundit with him into the bathroom to cry.

 

 _On Tuesday, all hell broke loose. It began when Tommy woke up confused, his nose twitching. There was a noise that had woken him up, so he looked around, not quite awake yet, trying to get his bearings. His dream had been so_ vivid _. But oh, fuck, there was Tracey. Tommy slunk back towards the back of his cage, trying to make himself small and unnoticeable. In the cage next to his Lady mirrored his movements exactly, and Tommy had to stifle an absurd giggle. He’d been dreaming that he was a dog, and now he was behaving like one. Maybe the cage was having an effect on him?_

_Tommy and Lady warily followed Tracey with their eyes. Blood was rushing in Tommy’s ears, his hands shaking in his lap; Tommy’s body reacted with a low intensity panic whenever Tracey showed up. His dream had come with a sense of serene, everything-is-good-in-the-world calm, but that was all gone now, even as he was still half in the haze of rolling around in the grass as a golden retriever. In his dream he’d been Lucio, playing in a park with Leo and Pundit. They’d been chasing interesting smells and the others' tails, and Favs and Emily and Lovett had been there, too. Just before he woke up, Tommy had been trotting over to where Lovett was sitting on the ground, and even now he could still feel the phantom press of Lovett’s hand on his head, fingers scratching behind his ears. It had felt embarrassingly good._

_With Lovett’s dream-touch still lingering, Tommy’s heartbeat slowly began to mellow down. It also helped that Tracey didn’t pay him any attention. Rather than coming over to say hello to Tommy and Lady, as Terence would have done, she stomped straight over to the little office in the corner of the room and started searching for something. She was yanking out desk drawers and scrambling through filing boxes. And then she stopped_ dead _._

_As Tommy watched in dim alarm, Tracey snatched up a piece of paper that was sticking out from a pile on the desk and quickly ran her eyes over it three times. Her face went pale, and then quickly a purplish red. Then she swirled around towards the still-open door and bellowed “TERRY!!!” at the top of her lungs._

_A reluctant Terence soon appeared, and when he saw the paper in Tracey’s hand his face went through the same pale-to-reddish purple transformation that hers had, though he added a final step where he turned a greenish gray and then stayed that way._

_“What is this?” asked Tracey, now deceptively calm. She shook the paper a little._

_Terence gave an unconvincing shrug._

_“It’s not… I wasn’t gonna send it without talking to you first.”_

_“It’s a ransom note.”_

_It wasn’t like the conversation hadn’t had Tommy’s attention before, but now it_ really  _had it. A ransom note?_

_“Look, Trace,” pleaded Terence, but he trailed off before he could go on to actually make an argument, as if he knew Tracey was gonna cut him off._

_And indeed._

_“What the_ fuck  _were you thinking?” snapped Tracey, raising her voice again. When Terence didn’t immediately answer, she tapped her foot._

_“Trace. The guy” – he twitched his head in Tommy’s direction – “is some sort of kinda celebrity –”_

_“– well, we live in LA –”_

_“– so it’s not just a random nobody disappearing. And we ain’t talking some C-list actor or whatever, he used to work for fucking Obama! His friends probably have the contacts to get the feds on our case, or Secret Service or CIA or somethin’. You said yourself we’re already in a ‘fucking precarious situation’! And you also said that someone might have seen him drive here! And did you know they found the dog!?”_

_They found Lucio? Oh thank God. Tommy had to control a relieved exhale, so it wasn’t too loud. But wait…_

_Tracey’s eyes narrowed._

_“How do you know that?” she asked._

_Yeah, how_ did  _he know that? Terence threw Tommy a quick, guilty glance._

_“I, uh, googled him. That’s how I know he used to work for Obama.”_

_That wasn’t quite true, but Tommy wasn’t about to pipe up and point out that he’d actually told Terence that himself._

_“And I also found out,” went on Terence, “that he has one of those internet radio channel things. So I listened to it and yesterday they had a message about how he’s missing and how people should send in tips. And you said yourself that people keep snooping around the shelter to ask about him. The police have been there twice!”_

_Tommy’s heart sung out in response to the confirmation that Favs and Lovett – and the police, for that matter – were doing everything they could to help find him, but he quickly pulled his mind back to the here and now. He was surprised that Terence was standing up to Tracey, even if he still wasn’t entirely honest with her. He’d had him pegged as all follower; Terence had always referred to Tracey with deference when they talked, a baby bro in awe of his badass (if low-key evil) sister even as an adult. Maybe it was the surprising defiance that did it, or maybe Tracey was just convinced by her brother’s arguments. In any case she sort of deflated, anger seeping out of her pores and then back in, converted into resignation. She crossed her arms across her chest, ransom note still clutched in her fist._

_“So what should we do about it then, genius?”_

_Terence looked at the note in Tracey’s hand._

_“Get some money out of our hostage, get some fake IDs and whatever we need and then get the hell out of dodge! The cops are gonna find out about us sooner or later, you always say that, you always say to have a plan ready to ‘up and leave’. Even if we get rid of him like you want, we’re still under a bunch more scrutiny now. How long before the fuzz figure it out, even if the FBI don’ get involved? What if we kill him and they find us anyway? Then we’ll be murderers an’ not just whatever the crime we’re doing now is called. If we ransom him instead we’ll get the money to set up somewhere else. Think about it, Trace!”_

_Tracey pulled a considering face._

_“I_ do _always say we’ll need to up and leave eventually,” she admitted._

_And with that, for the first time since he went down at Tracey’s hands, Tommy felt true hope._

 

Lovett wasn’t even the first person to notice the e-mail. Intern Maria was. She’d been checking the tip account, even though the interns had been forbidden from doing that after they got sent that horrific video of an ISIS hostage execution. (Lovett still got nauseous whenever he thought about it.) She’d been reading through the subject lines, only clicking on the ones that seemed innocuous enough – “Possible human boat shoe spotted at LAX”, “You should find Tommy because I miss PStW!!!”, “Tall, blond man seen with dark-haired woman in Oakland” – and then she had noticed one that did  _not_ seem innocuous at  _all_. It read, simply but suitably, “ransom note READ THIS”.

Maria had gone to Tanya, who – peaking through one half-shut eye, on high alert for beheadings – actually opened the e-mail and read the message. And as soon as she did, she, in turn, went to Lovett, without even opening the attached file first.

Tanya knocked softly on the slightly ajar door to the founders’ office. Lovett was alone in there; Favs was off to meet with some sponsors who were worried about what would happen to the different pods if Tommy stayed gone. And Tommy was, well, gone. Lovett turned towards the sound and made eye contact with Tanya, and instantly understood that something had happened.

“You need to see this,” she said, but when Lovett started to rise, she added, “No, stay – just open the inbox.” She didn’t need to clarify  _which_ inbox.

Lovett shivered. Something had finally  _really_  happened, he could feel it. And of course it had happened just when Lovett had consciously been avoiding the tip account. It was like that thing with umbrellas – if you bring one, it won’t rain, but if you don’t, then it will. Or, well, Lovett had actually been the one to open that other interesting e-mail about someone possibly having seen Tommy’s car – at least they’d seen a car of the same make and model driving suspiciously slowly and jerkily through LA on the day that Tommy disappeared. Lovett had put that information through to the police, but nothing had come of it yet. Which was actually  _why_ he’d been avoiding the tip account. Patience was a virtue, and Lovett had been trying to cultivate it by not checking for new messages every three seconds. So  _of course_  that was when they actually got the one message that would change everything. (But at least he was at work at all, and not at home avoiding everybody and anybody, listening to Pod Save the World on repeat like he’d done all Tuesday…)

“Here,” said Tanya, pointing at Lovett’s screen, “open this one.”

Lovett’s heart skipped a beat when he read the subject line. It more than made up for it in how quickly it started beating as he actually read the message.

“ _This is not a joke. We have kidnapped Tommy Vietor. The recording is proof. Our ransom is 5 million $. Reply to the message for instructions how to pay._

_PS its in everyone’s intrest to not involve the police.”_

The message was sent from the e-mail address xyz123aaaaaaaaaaaaa@hotmail.com. There was file attached entitled “proof.wav”. Without even considering whether it might be a virus, Lovett clicked it, and a voice rang out from his laptop speakers.

“I’m alive. I’m fine. Please don’t contact the police. Just comply with the instructions and they’ll let me go.”

It was Tommy, alright. If Lovett’s heart had been beating fast before, it was practically in fibrillation now, but he paid it no mind. He clicked the play button once more, and again he and Tanya could hear Tommy’s voice, delivering his short little message in the exact same monotone that he’d always fall into when reading ad copy he found unconvincing or objectionable.

Lovett’s chest was suddenly too small. He couldn’t breathe, and he was flushing all over, first hot, then icy cold. The tips of his fingers were tingling. He probably would have gone into a full blown panic attack if it hadn’t been for the walled off rational part of his mind that insisted he keep it together, that he couldn’t let himself fall apart just yet.

“Call Favs,” he got out, voice shaking.

 

There was obviously not a chance that Lovett would be able to sleep that night. He doubted anyone in Tommy’s inner circle would. This time Lovett himself had been the one to contact Tommy’s family, and he’d heard the breathless relief in their voices, the shuddering breaths they’d gasped for in the silence after he’d first told them that Tommy was alive. He’d cried with first Tommy’s mother, then his sister and then his step mom, all while Favs had been speaking to the police.

(“Of course we’re gonna pay,” Lovett had said, once Favs had returned to HQ, alarmingly quick for someone who was always on Lovett’s case for reckless driving.

“Of course we’re gonna contact the police,” Favs had shot back.)

The rest of the day had been spent at the police station, where Detective Ryan and his colleagues had interviewed Intern Maria, Tanya, Lovett and Favs, and set cyber experts to work at extracting any possible information from the email and the recording. But then night had fallen, and it had been time for everyone to go home.

For the last few days Lovett had vacillated between an intense need to be around people and dogs, and a need to be alone so strong that it had driven him to leave both Pundit and Lux with Spencer for two nights in a row. Yesterday he’d been unable to stand the thought of being alone, so he’d stayed with Favs and Emily. Tonight, when they were released at last from Detective Ryan’s clutches, they invited him over again. Lovett said no, though; he didn’t want to go home, but he didn’t want to spend the night at Chateau Favreau either.

The police had finally lifted the moratorium on entering Tommy’s house, and that was where Lovett headed to celebrate the news that Tommy was alive, and almost, almost within reach. Soon he found himself in Tommy’s bed (a  _lot_ more comfortable than Lovett’s own, it turned out, if just as lacking in Tommy’s actual presence), with Pundit and Lux flanking him on each side, listening to Tommy’s message over and over again, ringing out tinny but beautiful in his phone head set headphones.

‘He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive,’ chanted his brain as he listened, in time with his thumping heart.

On what had to be the 346th listen, Lovett didn’t really even hear Tommy’s words any more; he just heard his utter, undeniable and miraculous  _aliveness_. Lovett should set this as his ring tone. He would never need to listen to music ever again.

Tommy was alive, and he would come back – they’d pay the ransom, or the police would find him, it didn’t matter, no price could be too high. Tommy would come back, but then what? Surely he couldn’t still be angry? Surely he’d be too happy to be free again? Surely a brush with death would have tipped Tommy’s scales so that a decade of friendship outweighed Lovett’s clumsy inability to handle some buddy-fucking in a reasonable manner? Selfish thoughts.

Selfish, dangerous thoughts, that threatened to push Lovett down a path he’d tried to block off ever since Tommy had snarled at him about betrayal and Lovett had realised that he’d misunderstood everything, and still didn’t understand anything. Lovett did his best to focus on Tommy’s voice in his ears instead of the little voice in his head delivering dangerous questions. And still the voice remained, reminding Lovett of how things had been _before_ that call, so precarious, and yet so promising. In the forgiving light of his hope, then, Lovett had dared to question some of the things about Tommy that he’d held as facts for years by then. Tommy was barely even bisexual, according to Lovett’s long-held truths, but the way he’d looked at Lovett that Tuesday night, like Lovett was someone Tommy could not just desire, but _love_ , could have fooled anyone.

Fuck that noise. Lovett needed a distraction. He pulled out his headphones and went in search of food.

“I’m alive. I’m fine,” went on his brain as he walked down the stairs, both dogs in his tow. “Please don’t contact the police…”

Tommy’s voice –  _Tommy’s voice_ , which Lovett had started to despair of ever hearing again – kept repeating its message in Lovett’s head as he took a left turn into the kitchen. If Lovett had known that pulling out the headphones would be what helped him actually drown out his unruly thoughts, he would have done it hours ago. Oh well. Lovett opened the fridge, which revealed some expired soygurt and half a leek, and then he got out his phone and postmated some food instead.

The bad thing about having to wait for delivery instead of cooking was that it did nothing to dampen Lovett’s restlessness. As he waited for the poor night-time delivery person to show up (and get a big tip), Lovett paced Tommy’s house – kitchen, living room, guest room, dining room, up the stairs to the second guest room, the office, Tommy’s bedroom, back down again… – Pundit and Lux trailing after him in a tired, confused parade. If it had been difficult to handle his inability to do anything useful before today’s news, it was way worse now. Tommy was being held hostage somewhere, scared and alone and g-d knew what else, and there was  _still_ nothing Lovett could do to help him.

Only to give the poor angels some rest, Lovett sat down on Tommy’s boring, beige living room sofa and pulled up his laptop. For lack of anything better to do, he opened the ransom e-mail again. His sleep-deprived brain worked through the message word by word – not a joke, kidnapped, recording, ransom, instructions, police – and… wait. Wait wait wait.

“ _its in everyone’s intrest to not involve the police.”_

_“intrest”_

“Fucking Christ,” breathed Lovett, as a memory started to replay in his head.

“So, this Rosewood place that you’re taking me to managed to pass your exacting standards?” Lovett had asked, making conversation that was uncomfortably close to small talk in an attempt to move past the awkwardness of hanging out with one of your best friends for the first time since you almost kissed two nights ago.

“I guess,” had come Tommy’s response, delivered with half a shrug as he unlocked his car door, “I mean I mostly just fell in love with the puppy I want you to meet, but sure, the staff and volunteers I met were great and the dogs seem happy. The owner rubs me the wrong way, though...”

“Oh, why?”

“I dunno, actually,” Tommy had said as he got into the driver’s seat. “You know when you just take a dislike to someone for no real reason and then you hate everything they do, and then you use _that_ as some sort of circular justification for disliking them, even though it’s nonsense?”

“Absolutely!”

Lovett was no stranger to irrational grudges, and he’d been delighted that even fount-of-rationality Tommy Vietor got them too. He’d been about to say so when Tommy had gone on.

“Like, normally I wouldn’t give a shit if some random person spelled interesting like ‘intresting’ without the first ‘e’, I mean  _who cares?_ , but when this Tracey person does it makes my skin fucking  _crawl_!”

Holy. Shit.

The poor Postmates delivery person had to ring the doorbell thrice before the sound, coupled with the dogs’ barking at it, managed to reach Lovett through his serendipity-induced paralysis.

 

_Tommy had given up on not letting himself think too much about Lovett, on not letting himself daydream about romantic nonsense. The daydreams weren’t the biggest threat to his sanity anymore anyway. Hope was. How ironic for a former Obama staffer to have hope be one’s undoing._

_Hope. What a fucking bullshit emotion. It made a traitor of your heart, and you might still end up drowned like an unwanted puppy. The real possibility of change (hope and change, hope and change) reminded Tommy of the stakes down to his very bones. Tommy hadn’t really realised it himself, but he had actually somehow resigned himself to the possibility of death, or at least to being held captive. Now that hope, real hope was back on the menu, he longed for the calm of that resignation._

_Tommy had read, once, about the Stockdale Paradox, named after a captured Vietnam War admiral who claimed that being too optimistic about getting released from prison camp made his fellow soldiers die from broken hearts. Tommy knew that danger from experience, now; if he let himself indulge in hope, now, it would immediately turn to acute despair. He’d swing back and forth between exhausting emotional extremes, tearing him apart until he felt like fucking howling._

_There was also something in the Stockdale Paradox about how you needed to keep faith, but Tommy didn’t know how to distinguish between necessary faith and dangerously indulgent optimism right now. So instead, he indulged in Lovett-related daydreams and memories. He’d start with a memory from that last week before he got captured, like that dinner with Lovett and the Favreaus after Tommy brought Lovett along to Rosewood. Lovett had made a bit then out of describing Lucio to Emily and Favs, saying that the golden retriever was “the manifestation of lonely little WASP-kid-Tommy’s wish for a loyal companion to finally love him openly, only twenty years too late”. In reality, Tommy had just blushed, but in his fantasy, now, he would instead say something ridiculous like “It isn’t twenty years too late for_ you  _to love me openly, Lovett!”_

_Tommy was in the middle of such a daydream about Lovett – one where Tommy had let Lovett come along to pick up Lucio after all, and afterwards they’d gone on a hike with Lucio and Pundit, and Pundit had gotten tired so Tommy had picked her up to carry her, and Lovett had looked at them and realised that he always wanted Tommy to be there to pick Pundit and/or him up when they needed support – when Lady, who’d been dozing off in her cage, suddenly sat up and started to growl. Her ears twitched, clearly listening for some noise that Tommy’s human ears couldn’t hear._

_Moments later, all the other dogs on the premises went into a frenzied cacophony of barking that even Tommy could hear loud and clear. He was already on high alert, now – something was happening. He strained his ears, tilting his head just like Lady was tilting hers, and heard Tracey’s voice ringing out above the canine noise, much closer._

_“Fuck, the cops are here!” she yelled. “Terry, take this! Go take care of Tommy, then get the van! I’ll meet you out back!”_

_Terence responded something that Tommy couldn’t make out, and then he entered Tommy’s humble abode, carrying a gun._

_Jesus, fuck._

_Tommy tensed up, halfway risen from the mattress. Suddenly_ all  _of his senses were on high alert, honed in on Terence’s figure as he walked up to Tommy’s cage. Tommy could hear every footfall on the concrete floor, could see every little twitch of Terence’s hand as it held the gun against his side, finger off the trigger, and he even though he could sense the slight smell of sour sweat simmering under the general stench of the place. Tommy’s mouth tasted of metallic fear._

_Terence stopped just in front of Tommy’s cage door and raised the gun._

_“Tracey wants me to shoot you,” he said._

_Tommy suppressed an absurd urge to laugh, a sarcastic ‘No, really?’ from slipping out between his lips._

_“But you don’t want to shoot me,” he replied instead, trying to project calm certainty and not panicked pleading. He wished he wasn’t kneeling._

_Terence said nothing, just cast a stressed glance towards the kennel’s open door. Tommy racked his brain for what Terence had said in that argument with Tracey, when he convinced her to send that ransom note. Something about not wanting to become a murderer? If nothing else so because of a longer sentence if they were caught?_

_“You don’t want to do this, Terry,” he went on, stumbling over the nickname. “If the police get you – and they probably will, what’s the plan here, just drive away? Terence, if you shoot me now and the police catch you, you’ll be on trial for murder.”_

_They looked each other in the eyes for a weirdly intimate moment. Then Terence set his jaw._

_“Trace has a plan, she always has,” he said, sounding eerily like a petulant five-year-old._

_Tommy had a sudden flash of insight._

_“Maybe she does,” he said, slowly rising to his feet. “But are you included in that plan? Where is she now? How do you know she’s not just setting you up as the fall guy, while she gets away clean?”_

_“SHUT UP!” bellowed Terence._

_Tommy was sure he was gonna die, right then and there. But then Terence lowered the gun, and even stuck it precariously – did that thing have the safety on? – into the waistband of his jeans._

_“Come here,” he ordered, voice menacing._

_Tommy obeyed. As soon as he was within reach, Terence grabbed him through the cage by the scruff of his neck and pulled him sharply forward, Tommy’s face pressed uncomfortably against the bars. With his other hand Terence reached into an inner pocket in his jacket and pulled out a syringe._

_‘Not this again,’ was all Tommy had time to think before the needle pressed into his neck._

After almost exactly a week of Tommy being gone, of dread and worry and wildly fluctuating levels of hope, Lovett found it almost unfathomable that he was able to look at him now, to touch him where he lay, pale and small in a hospital bed. It was even stranger to not be able to talk to him.

According to the paramedics, Tommy had drifted in and out of consciousness as he was driven to the hospital, but for the last two and a half hours or so, he’d been unconscious. Lovett hadn’t even arrived at the hospital until fifteen minutes ago. He had taken off right after he got the call from the police, when they told him that they’d managed to find Tommy, to free him. Lovett had floored it all the way, arriving before Favs and anybody else, and lied his way into Tommy’s room.

According to the texts that Lovett was steadily getting, Favs, Emily and other assorted Crooked people and friends of Tommy’s were dropping in, one after the other, but they had to stay in a waiting area and make do with second hand information. Only Lovett was here, looking down at Tommy’s closed eyelids, almost translucent, and their fine eyelashes, gleaming golden even in the harsh hospital lighting. Tommy was paler than usual, his cheeks even more hollow, but Lovett didn’t think he’d ever looked more beautiful.

“Do you want a chair?” asked a nurse, who had entered without Lovett noticing.

Lovett just nodded, and when he got the promised chair he sat down to watch the nurse draw some blood from Tommy’s arm and then bustle out of the room again. Hospital personnel kept coming and going after that, but Lovett hardly paid them any mind. He could sit there for hours, holding Tommy’s limp hand and watching his chest rise and sink with every miraculous breath, as his own brain once again chanted ‘He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive’. Time had lost all meaning for Lovett in this triumphant present of having Tommy back.

And maybe hours had indeed passed when Tommy’s eyes finally fluttered open. Lovett instinctively snatched his hand back, as his heart made an almost painful somersault.

“Am I in a bed?” asked Tommy, unfocused eyes wandering around the room. He sounded like a lost little kid. Lovett’s heart couldn’t take it.

“Yes,” said Lovett, swallowing hard against the need to cry.

“Why is everything… wooshy?” asked Tommy, then, lifting heavy arms as if to make a gesture, and then letting them fall, mission unaccomplished.

“Uh, the doctors say you’ve gotten enough dog tranquilisers into you to put down four pitbulls. So I suspect that has something to do with the general wooshiness.”

“Oh, right,” said Tommy. “That makes sense.” And then his eyes slid closed and he was out of it again.

The next time Tommy woke up, he asked for a glass of water.

Lovett managed to procure one, but when he came to give it to Tommy, Tommy grabbed his wrist instead.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Lo,” he said hoarsely, his eyes so earnestly blue. “I love you.”

“You’re high,” mumbled Lovett quietly. Then, even quieter, he added “I love you, too.”

Lovett helped Tommy drink, and tried to cry as unobtrusively as possible as Tommy drifted off to sleep again.

 

_Waking up from whatever it was that Tracey and Terence put in those syringes wasn’t any more pleasant the second time around. Tommy spent all of Thursday drifting between sleep and an uncomfortable limbo of half-consciousness. And the more lucid he got, the more nauseous he became as well, until he asked a nurse for a sleeping pill to sleep the effects off once and for all. And when Tommy woke up the next morning, he actually felt fine, save from the cracking headache still throbbing throughout his skull._

_Tommy was looking forward to seeing friends and family again, but when the nurses realised that he was awake, they instead let in a detective who said he wanted to take Tommy’s statement “if he felt up for it”. Well, might as well get it over with._

_In the end, Tommy ended up getting about as much information from Detective Ryan as the detective got from him. The police obviously already knew about Tracey and Terence’s hideout – apparently Lovett had mysteriously figured out that it had to be Tracey that wrote the ransom note, and then the police had trailed her from the shelter to the kennel – and it didn’t take a lot of brainpower to figure out what they were doing with a bunch of scarred and battered fighting dogs. So, Tommy’s story mostly worked to corroborate what Detective Ryan already knew or suspected, and to provide the foundation for the kidnapping case against Terence. Against Terence alone, for now, because Tracey, apparently, had managed to disappear into thin air._

_“When we arrived at the scene,” explained Detective Ryan, “someone had let out all of the dogs, presumably to slow us down – very aggressive those mutts were, too. It was chaos! Still, we managed to capture Mr Nelson as he was trying to get away in a white van. His sister was not with him, though, and… well, she was nowhere else either. We made a thorough search of the entire premises once we had managed to capture all the damn dogs, and then we found Ms Nelson’s clothes in a small shed on the premises, strewn around as if she’d thrown them off in a hurry. The theory is that she put on some sort of disguise and managed to sneak out in all the dog-related pandemonium. It’s, uh…” Detective Ryan paused cleared his throat. “Anyway, I’m confident that she won’t be able to get far. You have my word that we’ll do everything we can to find her.”_

_“Thank you,” replied Tommy, mostly out of politeness. Sure, he wanted to get justice for himself and for all the dogs that Tracey had abused, but right now he cared surprisingly little about where his captor might have gone off to._

_“Well, I think that’s all for now, Mr Vietor,” said Detective Ryan then, a little awkwardly. “Unless you have anything else you want to ask me?”_

_Tommy did, in fact._

_“There was a dog in the cage next to mine,” he said. “A border collie…”_

_“Yes,” replied Detective Ryan, with the first real smile that Tommy had seen on him. “We freed her too; she’s currently being taken care of at the LA Central Animal Hospital, along with a lot of the other dogs from that godforsaken place. Most of them will probably have to be put down, poor things, but the vets say she should be fine.”_

_Tommy gave a sigh of relief._

_“Oh, good. She’s a sweet girl,” he said. “Actually, next time you talk to the vets…”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Can you ask them if there’s any chance that I could adopt her, once she recovers? We, uh, bonded. In our time together. You know…”_

_Detective Ryan smiled again._

_“I’ll see what I can do,” he said._

_Then he gave Tommy back his wallet, keys, and phone and got up to leave. Halfway to the door he stopped, though, and turned back_

_“Oh, and, Mr Vietor,” he said, now with a whole different kind of smile – teasing, almost, “I hope you and Mr Lovett manage to work out your differences.”_

_Then he was gone._

_Tommy’s head was spinning with all the new information, but he hardly had any time to try to unspin it before Favs showed up in the door, and everything else became unimportant. Completely without Tommy’s conscious input, his face split into a huge grin. It felt strange and unfamiliar; he hadn’t had much to smile about in the last week._

_“God, it’s good to see you!” exclaimed Favs, his voice cracking halfway through the sentence. He rushed over from the door to the bed, and Tommy risked a new bout of nausea by sitting up in his bed to give him a long, hard hug. As he held his best friend tight, tears started to form in his eyes. They felt like relief._

_When they finally let go, Tommy saw that Favs was crying too._

_“It’s so good to see you,” said Favs again._

_“You too, buddy,” replied Tommy, with emphasis. He wiped the back of his hand over his damp cheeks._

_For a moment they just looked at each other. Tommy took in Favs’ goofy, gap-toothed grin, the dark circles under his eyes, his dear, familiar form. He looked huge, from Tommy’s perspective down in the bed, like a giant of pure goodness. Tommy was still smiling, and the smile widened further again when he noticed that even during these stressful times, Favs had found the time to put too much product in his hair. Tommy wondered what his own hair looked like. A nightmare, probably._

_Then Favs sat down in the chair by Tommy’s bed._

_“Ugh, I’m sorry you had to suffer Detective Ryan all on your lonesome, by the way” he said. “They wouldn’t make an exception to the ‘one visitor at a time’ rule – which is also the reason why Emily isn’t in here right now, actually. She says hi!”_

_“How about Lovett?” asked Tommy. “Was he here before?”_

_Tommy didn’t remember much of the previous 18 hours, but he had the distinct sense that he’d woken up to Lovett’s messy curls and worried gaze, and felt rightness and calm wash over him._

_Favs looked uncomfortable._

_“Uh, yeah. Yeah, he was. He was the first to arrive after we got the news, and he somehow managed to sweet talk some nurse into letting him see you when they wouldn’t let anyone else in. He stayed almost all yesterday.”_

_“But he’s not here today?” asked Tommy, hearing between Favs’ lines._

_“No. I think he got overwhelmed? He’s staying at Spencer’s with all the dogs. I can, uh, I can text him that you’ve been asking for him.”_

_“No, I’ll do it myself. I have my phone back, now, it’d be a pity not to use it.”_

_It was an attempt at something like a joke, but Favs didn’t laugh, he just looked worried. About Tommy and Lovett? Time to change the subject, probably._

_“So, how much did the kidnappers want for me?” asked Tommy, trying to keep his voice light._

_“Five million,” replied Favs, mimicking Tommy’s tone._

_Favs had pronounced ‘million’ like ‘meellion’, which Tommy would usually laugh at with Lovett, but now found endlessly endearing. Then his brain parsed what Favs had actually said, and…_

_“Holy shit! Five million?!”_

_Favs grew more serious, looking Tommy earnestly in the eyes._

_“We would have paid, Tommy. Of course we would!”_

_Of course they would. Of course Tommy would have, too, if Favs or Lovett…_

_“Good thing you didn’t have to, then,” muttered Tommy. Then before he could help himself, he added, “The detective said Lovett somehow figured it out…?”_

_And they were back on the subject of Lovett again. Oh well, Tommy did have a bit of a one track mind right now. He blamed the dog tranquilisers._

_“Yeah, it’s weird,” said Favs. “Apparently he had this… stroke of insight in the middle of the night? And remembered that you’d complained about the shelter person spelling ‘interesting’ wrong just like it was misspelled in the ransom note. Sounds like some Agatha Christie bullshit, but it turned out to be right, so…” Favs ended the sentence with an expressive shrug._

_“Ha, no wonder Detective Ryan was vague on the details, then, that’s hilarious!” replied Tommy, but he could feel his heart warming up with gratitude towards Lovett and his brilliant brain’s way of making connections._

 

As soon as his phone started ringing, Lovett knew it must be Tommy. And Lovett could be a coward, but he didn’t want to be cruel, so he picked up, wandering off into Spencer’s guest bedroom for some privacy.

“Tommy,” he said. He felt like even just that word gave too much away.

“Lovett!” came Tommy’s voice through the phone’s speaker. “God, it’s good to hear your voice!”

“We talked yesterday,” said Lovett, more defensive than he meant to be.

“Yeah, I’ve been told,” answered Tommy, a little awkward. “I don’t really remember, though. Sorry.”

“Makes sense. You were pretty doped up,” said Lovett.

‘I love you,’ said Lovett’s memory of Tommy.

“So, uh, it’s good to hear you, but it would be good to _see_  you too…” said the current Tommy in Lovett’s ear.

And Lovett meant to say something nice, or something funny, or something deflecting, or at the very least something that wouldn’t be a complete non-sequitur, but what came out of his mouth was, “Have you listened to your voicemails yet?”

“Huh?”

“Er… have you listened to your voicemails yet?” repeated Lovett. In for a penny, and all that. “Because, uh… there might be some… weird, embarrassing shit in there…”

“Lo…”

“I’m serious, Tommy. You might have heard me say… some things, but –”

“I haven’t,” cut off Tommy.

“Haven’t what?”

Tommy laughed indulgently, like he had a thousand times before, but this time Lovett choked up hearing it.

“Haven’t listened to my voicemails,” said Tommy, laughter still in his voice. Lovett clearly hadn’t managed to impress upon him how serious this conversation was.

“Oh. Good. So, well, now you know that when you  _do_ , you should listen to them with the understanding that I was under, well, under extreme emotional duress when I recorded them –”

“Lovett…”

“– and should not be beholden to any, er, declarations that I may or may not have hinted at in those messages,” finished Lovett.

There was a longish silence as Tommy hopefully processed, understood and agreed to what Lovett had said.

“The detective told me he hoped you and I would ‘work out our differences’,” said Tommy at last, in a non-sequitur of his own. He even had the nerve to sound amused.

“Okay? Wait. _What?_ ” screeched Lovett, trying to remember what exactly he might have said to Detective Ryan that would make him say something like that. “Well, that was nice of him? I guess? – not really good ol’ Detective Ryan’s style, I’d think, I always found him kind of a hardass, but, um, nice of him to take an interest in our… relationship,” he forced out, voice stuttering.

Lovett could hear how hysterical he sounded, but he also couldn’t stop himself. His breathing had gone shallow, as if he’d been running. When he stopped speaking, the silence stretched out again.

“I’m sorry that I yelled at you last week,” said Tommy finally, sounding thoughtful. “And I also don’t think we should have this conversation over the phone.”

“Mmm,” hummed Lovett, like a non-committal coward.

Tommy sighed on the other end.

“Well, I hope I’ll see you soon, Lovett,” he said. “I’ve missed you.”

Lovett felt like an utter cad.

“I’ve missed you too,” he said. And then, because he was apparently the kind of person who used humour as both an invitation and a shield, he added, “I mean, if you hadn’t come back, Jon might have wanted me to take over Pod Save the World, and that would have been a disaster.”

Tommy laughed dutifully, and hung up with a last “I’ve really missed you.”

 

_Spencer was the one to open the door, which made sense, because Tommy was on Spencer’s doorstep._

_“Oh,” he said when he saw Tommy. “So they let you out?”_

_“Looks that way,” said Tommy, for lack of anything better to say._

_Spencer hesitated for a moment, then he pulled Tommy into a stilted hug; it was more awkward than even a Lovett-hug at its worst, but still a nice gesture._

_By the time Tommy and Spencer let go of each other, Leo and Pundit had arrived to dance around their feet._

_“So, er, I’m gonna go for a walk,” said Spencer, clearly making space for Tommy and Lovett to reunite without witnesses, which Tommy appreciated._

_Spencer grabbed his shoes and ran off, and Tommy sat down on the floor to properly greet Pundit and Leo. The doodles were going completely nuts, clambering over Tommy and just generally acting as if it had been a year, and not just a little more than a week, since they last saw him. Lucio, who had also showed up, was a lot less exuberant, however. The golden retriever hung back, cowering a little, which made Tommy’s heart hurt._

_“Hello, boy,” said Tommy, reaching his hand out towards his dog._

_Lucio took a step forward and delicately sniffed Tommy’s fingers. Then he shook himself off, stretched out his legs, and accepted a pat on the head, his tail starting to thump._

_“Yeah, boy, hi!” exclaimed Tommy, already feeling better. “Hi Lucio!”_

_“Oh, right, uhm…” came a voice from further into the hallway._

_While Tommy had been focused on Lucio and the doodles, Lovett had showed up. And just like Tommy had looked up at Favs from his hospital bed, he was now looking up at Lovett from the floor. Tommy felt like one of the dogs in the dog pile, and he imagined that the feeling of everything being right in the world that washed over him as he looked up at Lovett biting his lip wasn’t entirely unlike what Pundit and Leo were feeling right now, either._

_“So, er…” went on Lovett. “I might have… accidentally renamed your dog.”_

_Tommy barked a startled laugh._

_“Please tell me I don’t have a dog named ‘Maven’,” he said._

_That made Lovett stop chewing his lip, and smile instead. It was a small smile, a little reserved, but it was something, at least. Tommy grinned back up at him._

_“No,” said Lovett, “I didn’t take the opportunity of you being kidnapped to change your dog’s name to ‘Maven’. Though I do stand by that as an_ incredible  _name for a dog. But yeah, no, it’s really more like a nickname, I suppose… I didn’t know how to pronounce ‘Lu-s-k-ch-io’ – apparently you went with the Italian pronunciation – so I sort of just started calling him ‘Lux’.”_

_“Lux,” repeated Tommy, tasting the name in his mouth. Lucio – Lux – looked up from smelling Pundit’s butt and gave Tommy’s face a tentative lick. “I like it,” said Tommy, with another laugh._

_“Good, good,” said Lovett, distractedly. He was still towering over Tommy, and now he was biting his lip again, his hands shoved awkwardly in his pockets._

_“Makes a hell of a lot more sense than ‘Shadow’, anyway!” added Tommy, trying to break the tension._

_Lovett gave a little token laugh, but then he took a deep breath, seemed to steel himself._

_“Why are you here, Tommy?” he asked._

_Tommy stood up and brushed some golden hairs from the ‘Friend of the Pod’ t-shirt that Favs had brought him at the hospital. (When Tommy had told the hospital staff that he wanted to leave, they’d given him back the slacks and the shirt he’d been wearing throughout his captivity, now washed. It was a nice gesture, but Tommy would happily have gone the rest of his life without ever seeing those rags again. So he’d asked Favs to drop by with a pair of jeans and a t-shirt instead, and then he left, after promising his nurse_   _to come back for check-ins, and to book a therapist appointment as soon as possible.)_

_“Well,” he said, now looking down at Lovett instead of up. Tommy longed to get his paws on him, to drag his fingers through his curls and pull him close (or God, to rest his weary head in Lovett’s lap),_ _but he resisted the impulse. “I wanted to talk to you, and you didn’t come visit me. Favs said you were here, so, well… if Mohammad won’t come to the mountain…”_

_“Did you listen to the voicemails?” asked Lovett, sounding small. He looked small too, hunched in on himself. As Tommy watched him, he picked Pundit up and cuddled her close to his chest._

_Tommy nodded. On his drive to Spencer’s place – his car had been waiting for him outside the hospital, presumably driven there by some cop after being thoroughly searched – he_  had _listened to all the words that Lovett had filled up the space on Tommy’s memory card with, but it had been mostly a formality. Lovett’s messages hadn’t changed what Tommy wanted to say to him, only heightened his hopes and made his strengthened his resolve._

 _“Tommy,” Lovett had sobbed in that first one, the one that had to be from that night when Tommy had stared at his phone through the bars of his cage, unable to pick it up. “I’m alone in my bed, because they wouldn’t even let me go to your house, and I read somewhere that for every hour that passes after a person goes missing there’s less of a chance that they’ll show up alive. But you have to be alive, Tommy. You._ HAVE. _To. Be._ _I couldn’t bear it if you’re dead. I couldn’t bear it, because I l…” And then the message had clicked off, but Tommy had filled in the rest in his head. “I love you too,” he had mumbled, pressing down harder on the accelerator._

_“Okay, then,” said Lovett, back in the now, so much more closed off with Tommy actually alive in front of him than he’d been on the phone when he feared that Tommy might be dead. “Let’s talk.”_

_“Yeah, okay. But I need to sit down, and preferably somewhere other than the floor,” said Tommy. He still wasn’t as steady on his legs as he’d prefer to be. (Maybe he shouldn’t really have been driving either. Oh, well.)_

_Some minutes later, Tommy was sitting on Spencer’s comfortable couch with Lux’ head on his lap and Pundit and Leo both cuddled close. Lovett was seated in an arm chair on the other side of the coffee table, his arms wrapped around his pulled up legs, looking everywhere but at Tommy. Tommy petted his dog, and tried to decide how best to go about this conversation that he’d decided that they needed to have._

_Tommy had had a plan, last week, for how to move on from having yelled at Lovett over the phone for talking about his life with his best friend. Tommy was gonna show up to work with a new dog, and the puppy was gonna distract them until Lovett’s probable and very justified anger had blown over. And then, at some point, Tommy and Lovett might still have had to have some kind of Talk, but by then Tommy would have hinted at what he had to say enough that it would have been easy. At least that had been what Tommy had told himself as he got up that fateful Thursday morning and drove off to the shelter._

_Now, instead, everything was a mess and Tommy had been so impatient – life is short! – that he’d jumped them straight to the Talking bit, even though Lovett clearly didn’t feel ready for that yet. If it hadn’t been for the utter impossibility of ditching your friend who’s just been rescued from having been kidnapped, Lovett might actually have run away; it wouldn’t have been the first time that Lovett jumped ship rather than have a difficult conversation. The thing was, Tommy was reasonably sure that he and Lovett were actually a lot more on the same page regarding their relationship and what directions it might develop in than either of them had thought before – more than what Lovett probably still thought, if Tommy was reading his hesitancy right._

_Tommy thought about Terence hiding that ransom note draft from Tracey because he hadn’t been ready to show it to her yet, and how Tracey had felt he was going behind her back. Tommy hadn’t talked about Lovett behind his back like Lovett had with Favs, but he hadn’t exactly been honest with him either. He’d been scared; he was scared now. Terence had been scared. Lovett had probably been scared too._

_Tommy could see it all so clearly now, the two of them talking at cross purposes, acting on opposite impulses sprung from the same fear, misreading and misunderstanding the other. How Lovett, way back in the beginning in DC, must have taken Tommy’s “I’ve never actually dated a guy” and mentally added “and I wouldn’t be interested to”. How Tommy had taken Lovett’s pulling back from any increase in intimacy as a way to let Tommy down easy, instead of a way of protecting himself. How Tommy had gotten angry, a week or a thousand years ago, because he thought he knew how it must have gone when Lovett had told Favs about them, when he really had no fucking idea._

_Maybe that was the place to start? Going back to where it had all gone wrong and start over. Reset._

_“Lovett,” said Tommy softly, in the same voice that he had used when he’d first been trying to win Lady over. “Why did you talk to Favs about us?”_

_Lovett started, over in his armchair. He wasn’t looking away now – maybe he too had decided to be brave? – but he went pale under Tommy’s eyes and hugged himself tighter._

_“Tommy…” he said, voice pleading, but he never followed it up with an actual plea._

_“Hey, Lo, I’m not mad anymore,” said Tommy. “You don’t have to be afraid.”_

_Lovett prickled._

_“I’m not af–”_

_Tommy didn’t have to cut Lovett off; he did it himself. Just bit down on his lower lip halfway into the word and went quiet. But when his eyes met Tommy’s they were still pleading (for what?). They were still afraid._

_Tommy started over._

_“Jon, the reason I got so mad when I realised you’d told Favs about us was that I thought that – I was afraid you’d been, like, flippant about it.”_

_“Flippant!” exclaimed Lovett._

_“Yeah, you know, like how you can be about, well… about hook-ups.”_

_Lovett looked like he was about to interrupt again, so Tommy raised his voice and went on._

_“But now,” he said, “I think maybe it was the other way around. That maybe the reason you told him wasn’t that you didn’t think it was important, but that you did. Think it was important.”_

_“Tommy…”_

_“And I…” Tommy choked up. Fuck, how could this still be so hard after everything Tommy had been through the last week? He swallowed and went on. “I hope I’m right. Because Lovett, I… I want it to be something important. I mean, it is for me."_

_Tommy breathed in, then out. There it was. He’d said it._

_Lovett’s face had gone blank. He let go off his legs and they slipped down from the chair, but he didn’t even seem to notice it as he stared out into space in shocked silence. Tommy could feel his heart thumping in his chest, but he didn't let himself be scared again, not now. Now was the time to be brave. He took a deep breath._

_“I was a fucking idiot to suggest we go back to being fuck buddies when what I should have said is that I’m in love with you,” he said._ _“I have been for years.”_

_Lovett got up from his chair then, and wordlessly (for once)_ _walked over to Tommy as if in a trance. He sent dogs scattering everywhere as he climbed in Tommy’s lap and kissed him._

_Tommy couldn’t remember if he and Lovett had touched yesterday, but today he had been_ aching _to touch Lovett since he’d first showed up in Spencer’s hallway. Now he had his arms full of him, but it wasn’t enough. He pressed Lovett closer, breaking the kiss to nuzzle his face into Lovett’s neck and fill his nose with Lovett’s smell, salty and warm and a little musky in a way that, now as always, went straight to Tommy’s dick. Lovett groaned and ground down on Tommy’s lap, but then he stopped himself and pulled back a few inches to look down on Tommy, smiley and beautiful._

_“Maybe we shouldn’t have our reunion fuck on Spencer’s couch,” he laughed. “Oh, and I love you too, by the way.”_

_As Lovett drove them to Tommy’s house – “Your bed is more comfortable than mine.” “Okay. Wait, how do you…?” – he picked the conversation they’d been having pre-kissing back up._

_“You know, I didn’t actually mean to tell Favs about us,” he said, chewing his lip again as he drove, but much less viciously this time. “It was after the, I think, third time or so that we, er, messed around.” Lovett was clearly embarrassed, but he only paused to swallow quickly before soldiering on. “I, uh, asked him what the rules were for straight men fucking their gay friends and he said he didn’t think there were any rules for that because that’s not a thing straight people actually do, and, er… in hindsight I think he might actually have had the better of that argument. Anyway, he figured out I was talking about you pretty quick; it wasn’t like there were too many possible candidates cooped up in our little DC bubble.”_

_‘DC bubble’ was the phrase for it. Tommy thought back to that time, as he watched Los Angeles glide by outside the car window that he’d opened to feel the fresh air (which he had a newfound appreciation for). It had been easy, back in the White House times, not to think about Lovett – at least not like_ that  _– during the day, but then fall into bed with him in the night. To let the feelings that he kept telling himself he wasn’t catching sneak up on him until they were just a fact of life. And then Lovett had left and Tommy had thought he’d gotten over it, until Lovett’s gravity pulled first Favs and then Tommy too to California. Tommy had thought Favs an innocent party in that, but maybe…_

_“Favs was always urging me to talk to you about it, too,” said Lovett, as if he’d been reading Tommy’s mind. “It’s a wonder he managed to keep mum about it for as long as he did, really… Anyway, obviously I didn’t. Talk to you, I mean. I guess I just didn’t want things to get awkward or whatever – seems ridiculous now, after all this obviously, but… I guess had this idea in my head of, like, ‘Tommy doesn’t date men, he just fucks us’, and you never really told me otherwise.”_

_Tommy looked away from the window then, back at Lovett, who in turn was keeping his eyes on the road in a fairly uncharacteristic way_.

_“I tried to, Lovett,” insisted Tommy. “Or at least I wanted to. But I – every time I tried to, like, up the intimacy level you’d pull back, so I never dared…”_

_“I know, I know,” said Lovett, stealing a glance at Tommy after all. “We’ve both been idiots.”_

_They grinned at each other, and then they drove in silence for a while, until Tommy had a sudden thought._

_“Favs said you managed to sweet talk some nurse into letting you visit me yesterday. What did you say to her?”_

_Inexplicably, after all that had already happened today, Lovett blushed._

_“I, uh, told her that I was your boyfriend,” he said, lifting his jaw in defiance of the colour rising in his cheeks._

_Tommy’s eyebrows rose on their own accord._

_“A little presumptuous, don’t you think?” he teased._

_“Mmm, but now it’s retroactively true, so you shouldn’t complain.”_

_Tommy’s heart skipped a beat – they hadn’t really said that they were going to be boyfriends now, though that might have been implied in the ‘I love you’s’, Tommy supposed. But still. Tommy reached out to take one of Lovett’s hands from off the steering wheel, and pressed it between his own hands._

_“I’m_ definitely _not complaining,” he said, and lifted Lovett’s hand to his lips to kiss it._

_“This is nice,” replied Lovett, joke voice in full force. “Usually you make a big stink when I get distracted while driving.”_

_Tommy laughed, like he always did at Lovett’s jokes. Like he always would._

_When they got to Tommy’s house, they first set out food and water for the dogs, and then they went straight to Tommy’s bedroom._

_Tommy let himself fall back onto the bed as soon as they got there, bouncing a little as he landed. Lovett laughed, then followed him down. And Tommy definitely had plans to do other things, now that they were here – they had a reunion fuck to get to, after all – but he took a moment to just luxuriate in being in his own bed, rather than in a hospital cot or on a disgusting mattress on the floor._

_“I can’t believe I just got out of that damn hospital bed and all I want to do is lie down,” he said._

_“Hey, no judgement,” said Lovett. “We can stay here for” – he reached for Tommy’s arm to check his watch – “three and a half hours before dinner with Jon and Emily._ _We’ve got time.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Re the line "Detective Ryan’s voice has only gotten drier, like some sort of fancy wine aging in a barrel (if that was how wine worked – Lovett knew very little about the subject).": that is _not_ , in fact, how wine making works, Google tells me. How dry a wine is depends on how long it’s fermented, not how long it’s aged. The more you know.
> 
> Also, I know I said I was going to remove all the magical elements from this story... but did I?
> 
> Oh, and now that reveals have been revealed, I can make a plug for my [podsa tumblr](https://abriefshoutouttosomeminutiae.tumblr.com/), where you can get updates about what I may or may not be working on next
> 
> Lastly, I want to give a _meellion_ thanks to my beta, [SelfRescuingPrincess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SelfRescuingPrincess/), who I can now thank properly for making this a sharper, fuller story, always teaching me something new (last time it was about women's footwear, this time about the [Stockdale Paradox](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockdale#The_Stockdale_Paradox%22)), and surprising me with this amazing little epilogue that deserves all the praise:
> 
>  **Favs:** Pod Save America is brought to you byyyyy the Cash App!  
>  **Lovett:** The Cash App!  
>  **Favs:** Do you need to make a five-million-dollar ransom payment to rescue a business associate?  
>  **Tommy:** Wait, I’m just a business associate to you guys?  
>  **Lovett:** Listen. You have a ransom to pay- what are you going to do, write a fucking check? NO! You don’t have time for that! This is your _business associate_ we are talking about!  
>  **Favs:** Five dollars goes to you, five dollars goes to [Best Friends Animal Shelter](https://bestfriends.org/sanctuary) that rehabilitates dogs rescued from illegal dog fighting rings.  
>  **Tommy:** Oh, guys! I didn’t know you picked a new charity! That’s so awesome!  
>  **Favs:** We missed you, buddy.  
>  **Lovett:** Look. We won’t play a sad fucking [Sarah McLachlan](https://www.google.com/search?q=Sarah+McLachlan) song. We’re above emotional manipulation.  
>  **Favs:** No we’re not.  
>  **Lovett:** Use the Cash App and save some fucking dogs.  
>  **Tommy:** I really missed you guys.  
>  **Lovett:** Cash App! We aren’t using the other ransom apps anymore! End of ad.


End file.
